If the headlines are to be believed, spam is now entirely legal in Virginia and anyone can send whatever they want without any fear of reprisal, ever. Looking beyond the headlines, it appears that the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling in AOL's case against formerly convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes declares that the Virginia anti-spam law violates the Constitutional protection of anonymous speech, and thus is null and void. more
The 2004 criminal spam case against large-scale spammer Jeremy Jaynes, which I've covered in several previous blog entries, appears to have come to an ignominious end with the state supreme court throwing out the law under which he was convicted. The Virginia anti-spam law was one of the first in the country with criminal provisions, but it failed due to the way that First Amendment cases are treated differently from all other cases. more
During ISOI 4 (hosted by Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, California) whenever someone made mention of RBN (the notoriously malicious and illegal bulletproof hosting operation, the Russian Business Network) folks would immediately point out that an operation just as bad was just "next door" (40 miles down the road?), working undisturbed for years. They spoke of Atrivo (also known as Intercage). The American RBN, if you like... more
I first outline a brief history of free file-sharing technology, then draw some general and domain name lessons, then outline the what, how, and why that make your activism effective and necessary... The domain name industry is decentralized and atomic in that anyone from anywhere in the world can register a domain name, keep the ownershp name and address private, and host it from a country where the U.S. and European legal systems don't apply. Thus, legal action will only drive domain owners further underground. more
"'Sucks.com is the rightmost anchor of nearly 20,000 domains registered today. Two thousand domains have 'stinks.com' on the right and about the same number of domains begin with the term 'boycott'," write the authors of the recently released paper The Power of Internet Gripe Sites. According to their (interesting) study, 35% of the "brandsucks" domains are owned by the brand while 45% are available for registration. They thus advise brand owners "to take a serious look at the traffic that these names garner and the kind of unique marketing opportunity they can afford." ...I do not fully agree with their conclusions... more
What do iTunes and a cooperative domain-name Intellectual Property (IP) regime have in common? They are market solutions to illegal activity: free downloading of music and free use of brands in domain names, respectively. The music industry tried to fight the free downloading of copyright-protected music by taking legal action against free downloaders under the pretext that their activity siphons industry revenue... more
In an article published by the Technology Liberation Front, Cato Institute adjunct scholar Tim Lee dissects a recent argument by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) regarding free speech & anti-spam laws. It's been interesting to watch the ACLU wrestle with anti-spam legislation. Their entire purpose is to work through the legal system to protect our civil rights, as defined in the First Amendment -- which is why I've been a card-carrying member since before I was old enough to vote... more
Way back in 1995, Wired reporter Simson Garfinkel gave Jeff Slaton the name "Spam King." Less than a year later, Sanford Wallace earned the title -- and soon had to share it (and his upstream provider) with Walt Rines. Others have come and gone; Sanford and Walt reappear every few years, together or separately, only to be sued away again... it seems as if any spammer noticed by law enforcement is immediately crowned "the Spam King," even when there are multiple such crownings happening at the same time. more
A few years ago, cell phone portability was introduced in the United States which caused a major shift in the market. The same thing happened this past year in Israel, following a major battle involving the cell carriers, consumer groups and the Israeli parliament (The Knesset). What if the same happened with email addresses? Ridiculous, you say? May be so, but there is chatter here in Israel to create a law which forces the local service providers hands to do just that. more
In a June court ruling, domainer Navigation Catalyst and registrar Basic Fusion lost a cybersquatting lawsuit to Verizon... This is an extremely interesting and potentially precedent-setting case regarding domaining and domain name tasting. The court condemns both practices, leading to a preliminary injunction against the domainer and its registrar based on the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). As far as I can recall, this is the first time that a domainer has lost an ACPA lawsuit in court, and it provides an important data point confirming that domaining can be cybersquatting (a previously unresolved issue)... more
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