A judge Tuesday denied Harris
Interactive’s request for a temporary restraining order that would
have forced anti-spam organization Mail
Abuse Prevention System to remove the online researcher from its
“Realtime Blackhole List.”
The RBL enables clients of MAPS to block the e-mail of companies that do
not follow its anti-spam policies.
“This is an important first-round victory for us,” said MAPS spokesperson
Kelly Thompson.
“The judge realized that Harris’ claim of irreparable harm to their business
from being placed in the RBL wasn’t as strong as they had claimed.”
The ruling comes less than a week after Harris filed suit alleging that
it was unfairly placed onto the RBL. The Harris lawsuit, which originally
named America Online , Microsoft, Qwest and other ISPs along with MAPS,
sought injunctive relief and monetary damages to stop ISPs from using the
RBL list to block its e-mail. The company earlier this week removed America
Online’s name from the lawsuit. Interestingly, Harris said that it “believes that it is now able to fully communicate with all of its registered respondents who have AOL e-mail addresses,” but it didn’t indicate whether the ISP giant had assisted it in getting around the MAPS list restrictions.
Litigation against the other defendants will continue.
MAPS also announced Tuesday that it has retained the Internet
litigation department of law firm Arent Fox. Arent Fox attorney
Michael Grow, who successfully litigated the AOL v. Cyberpromo
case, will be working on the case.