October 18, 2006

E360 Insight v. The Spamhaus Project

I'm following the E360-Spamhaus dispute with great interest, and have been discussing it in my Cyberspace Law seminar at The John Marshall Law School. The case presents some fascinating issues in the areas of spam law, Internet governance, civil procedure, and international law -- and it happens to have a handful of connections with John Marshall.

In the district court, the case was heard by Judge Charles P. Kocoras, who has served on the federal bench for over 25 years and has taught at John Marshall as an adjunct professor for even longer than that. Matthew Neumeier of Jenner & Block, an adjunct professor in John Marshall's Information Technology and Privacy Law program, is representing Spamhaus in its appeal to the Seventh Circuit. Matthew Prince's comments about the case have been widely quoted in the media; he is CEO of Unspam Technologies and also is an adjunct professor in John Marshall's IT law program. And a similar fact scenario (i.e., spam-related accusations as the basis for suspension of a domain name) was used as the problem for John Marshall's annual moot court competition way back in 1996. The best briefs and the bench memorandum prepared for that competition were subsequently published in John Marshall's Journal of Computer & Information Law.