Anti-spam activists lose by winning

After allowing the defendants to run up hefty costs preparing their defence(s) Mark Felstein (EmarketersAmerica's lawyer and director) unilaterally withdrew the lawsuit. And now the Judge has let him do so without making any kind of order about costs, leaving the defendants heavily out of pocket despite their lawyers generously dropping his fees by $40,000.

As Spamhaus's Steve Linford put it "although delighted with the technical outcome, we're left with the costs of having had to defend the bogus lawsuit, as the Florida legal system does not grant costs to the winner even in cases where lawsuits are as fraudulent as this one clearly was."

The more cynical amongst us may draw the conclusion that spammers are now trying to use the legal process to bankrupt anti-spam organisations by forcing them to prepare for cases the spammers have no intention of pursuing to a conclusion.

Unless the defendants can find enough money to counter-sue for malicious prosecution (with no guarantee of success) it looks like the spammers walk away unhindered.

No information will be revealed in court about who may actually have been behind the suit (though this NANAE posting by defendant Susan Wilson may hold a clue) or even if eMarketersAmerica was, as has been alleged, a sham organisation set up solely for the purpose of bringing this suit.

The relavent PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) documents are mirrored here and here

The motion to dismiss from the defendants' lawyer Pete Wellborn (of Earthlink vs Cyber Promotions and Earthlink vs Buffallo Spammer fame) is a great example of a lawyer putting the boot in.

If you'd like to donate to the SpamCon legal defence fund set up to help with this and any future spam lawsuits head along to http://www.spamcon.org/legalfund/