The big spam news today is that bulkmailer E360Insight is trying to persuade a federal judge to order the suspension of the spamhaus.org domain name. This follows a court case in which E360Insight won an $11.7 million default judgment against Spamhaus, claiming that Spamhaus had wrongly listed them as a spammer. Spamhaus did not contest the action, on the grounds that US courts had no jurisdiction over the UK-based anti-spam organization.

Steve Linford of Spamhaus has warned that the loss of the domain might harm spam-fighting efforts worldwide, with one of the services likely to be affected being the useful Realtime Blackhole List. Linford may be overstating the case for publicity purposes: Spamhaus could easily move to a different domain (such as a '.org.uk' domain, not subject to control by US-based authority ICANN) and mail administrators would soon reconfigure to use the new domain.

The real question is what E360Insight expects to gain from this. Ostensibly, all their actions are aimed at getting Spamhaus to remove them from their blocklist and post a public apology. If that's what they really want, they're definitely going the wrong way about it.

I had never heard of E360Insight before this. As far as I can tell, I have not yet received any spam from them, so I have no first-hand knowledge as to their activities or practices. On the other hand, my experience of Spamhaus has been that they are impartial, knowledgeable, extremely meticulous and very cautious. The contrast between Spamhaus's detailed, careful documentation and the legalistic posturing on E360Insight's website tells me everything I need to know about the two organizations.

Whether E360Insight wins this case or not, whether they are indeed a spammer or not, they will be known as the company that tried to destroy Spamhaus, that tried to single-handedly bring down one of the most useful resources in the war against the tide of crap that threatens to engulf our inboxes. And as a result, it will be a cold day in Hell before any mail server that I control accepts so much as a packet from an E360Insight netblock.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling that way. If you listen closely, you can probably hear a distant rumble from around the world as E360Insight's IP ranges are slammed into thousands and tens of thousands of personal blacklists. Do you want mail from the guys who tried to kill Spamhaus? Uh, no thanks. We'll pass. E360Insight are apparently under the romantic illusion that every mail server in the world is required to pass their traffic, but this isn't the case at all. Anyone who operates a mail relay is free to deny any traffic they choose, on any grounds whatsoever. Thanks to this court case, we don't need Spamhaus to tell us that E360Insight isn't sending anything we want to receive. They have done more harm to their own reputation than Spamhaus ever could. Talk about a Pyrrhic victory.

So this court case is not about to improve E360Insight's delivery statistics, nor will it bring them new customers. Any business that reads the news can't help but guess that in the world of email, E360Insight is now about as popular as a rattlesnake in a petting zoo. So what did they hope to gain? Contrary to spammer gossip, Spamhaus is not vindictive or irrational. If E360Insight were serious about getting delisted, my guess is that they could have talked it through and addressed the issues that caused Spamhaus to list them in the first place. Instead, they picked up the big stick.

Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It could just be that David Linhardt of E360Insight is a confrontational 'bull-at-the-gate' kind of guy who sees red when he thinks he's being bullied. That's one possible interpretation, but it's not the only one.

One of the surest ways to understand someone's actions is to ask cui bono? Who benefits? If Spamhaus gets shut down, who wins? Mr Linhardt would like you to believe that the answer is "ethical businessmen and responsible emailers", but the real answer is "spammers". For whatever reason, Linhardt is fighting the spammers' battles for them. I'll leave you to make up your own minds as to why anyone would want to do that.

Update: ICANN has declined to suspend spamhaus.org, stating that it lacks the authority and ability to do so. Expect to see E360Insight start putting pressure on Tucows, the registrar for spamhaus.org.