(InfoWorld Daily via NewsEdge) A US court has threatened to shut down the Spamhaus Project, a volunteer-run anti-spam service, for ignoring a $11.7 million judgment against it.
In a proposed court order, Judge Charles Kocoras of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois calls on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization's Internet service.
Both the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Tucows, the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the proposed order.
The proposed order follows a September 13 ruling in which Spamhaus was required to pay damages and stop listing an email marketing company called E360Insight in its database of known spammers.
Spamhaus, based in London, has said that it ignored the judgment because it cannot be enforced in the UK.
Though the order is not yet final and may be part of 'the judge's gambit to get Spamhaus to come back to the table,' there is nothing to prevent it from ultimately being finalized, said Matthew Prince, CEO with Unspam Technologies, and an adjunct professor of law with the John Marshall Law School, writing in a blog posting.
'In other words, there may be some time before ICANN is formally ordered to shut down the Spamhaus domain, but make no mistake "&brkbar; ICANN's lawyers will be considering their options,' he wrote.
But shutting down Spamhaus is certainly a possibility, according to Prince. 'I don't know what ICANN will do, but I bet they'll at least consider complying,' he wrote.
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