Internet experts are worried that a U.S. court decision against antispam black-lister Spamhaus Project could trigger a "constitutional
crisis" for the Internet.
Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled against the antispam project in a lawsuit
brought by e-mail marketer E360Insight. The court ordered Spamhaus to remove the company from its database of spammers and
to pay $11.7 million in damages, but Spamhaus initially ignored the ruling, saying that the U.S. court had no jurisdiction
over the U.K.-based project.
On Friday, the judge in the case upped the stakes. He issued a proposed order that told both the Spamhaus.org domain name registrar, Tucows, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) to pull the project's domain name, a move that would shut down the Spamhaus Web site.
Though the order is only proposed, and does not have the force of law, observers worry that any attempt by U.S. courts to
exert control over ICANN could be bad for the Internet.
ICANN, in Marina del Rey, Calif., has already come under fire for lacking transparency and being U.S.-centric.
"It's a delicate time for ICANN right now," said David McGuire, director of communications with the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CDT), a public interest group focused on Internet issues. "If a court were to order ICANN to remove a domain name, we think that
would be a bad precedent because making ICANN a tool of the U.S. legal system in matters such as these would sidetrack ICANN
from its very important duties."
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
