For now at least, it looks like the legal dispute between Illinois-based e-mail marketer 360 Insight LLC and London-based anti-spam group Spamhaus won’t set a dangerous precedent for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

As we reported in this space last week, e360 won a default judgment in a civil case it filed against Spamhaus and had asked a federal judge to demand that ICANN strip Spamhaus of its Web address, spamhaus.org. Although we take no position on the substance of e360’s complaint against Spamhaus, we vehemently objected to the company’s attempt to involve ICANN in the process.

As we said in our official statement, ICANN has neither the legal authority nor the practical ability to suspend Spamhaus.org. It is e360’s responsibility to ask a court that has jurisdiction over Spamhaus to enforce the U.S. Court’s judgment. Under no circumstances should ICANN be required to be involved. ICANN has a vital responsibility to oversee and preserve the stability and security of the global Domain Name System (DNS). It would set an unfortunate precedent to involve it in a case like this.

Thankfully though, it appears such a precedent won’t be set. Late last week, Judge Charles Kocoras issued this order denying e360’s request that the court force ICANN to suspend spamhaus.org. You can read ICANN’s explanation of the decision here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Standards & Governance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.