Spam News

Court rejects $10 million spam lawsuit

Monday, August 10, 2009

An internet domain owner seeking $10 million in damages from an online marketer over spam email had his appeal rejected last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit.

James Gordon, owner of the domain gordonworks.com, had sued email marketer Virtumundo under the CAN-SPAM Act, seeking damages for alleged violations of the anti-spam law.

While acknowledging ambiguity in the law, the appeals court upheld the decision of a lower court to reject Gordon's suit, arguing in its judgment that Gordon does not have standing under the law, which reserves the right of action for the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general and "internet access providers."

According to the court, Gordon set up email accounts on gordonworks.com for himself and family members, who later abandoned their accounts.

But Gordon continued to monitor the abandoned accounts and configured the email server to provide an automated response to all commercial emails by which Gordon claimed the sender agreed to either cease and desist or pay Gordon $500 for each additional unsolicited spam email.

The court said Gordon did not provide evidence that he suffered harm under CAN-SPAM, nor did he prove that he took any action to block unwanted spam through spam filters or by following the opt-out procedures.