Just in case we needed more evidence that the US court system alone will not be enough to stem the tide of spam, here is a story which demonstrates one of the big stumbling blocks to enforcement: jurisdiction. . . .
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by America Online (AOL) against a group of Floridians the company accused of conspiring to spam its users, lawyers for the defendants announced late Tuesday.

The case, which was dismissed last week by Chief Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, centered around claims by AOL that a number of Florida-based computer technicians conspired with others to send bulk e-mail through AOL's system, said lawyers with the Virginia-based firm Albo & Oblon in a statement.

Hilton ruled AOL had failed to demonstrate that "Virginia had jurisdiction over the Florida defendants simply because AOL's business resides in Virginia and the alleged bulk emails had gone through Virginia," said Albo & Oblon.

In the ruling, Hilton also said that asserting jurisdiction over the defendants would violate their right to due process, and that merely enabling someone to transmit material over the Internet was insufficient to permit such jurisdiction.

The link for this article located at Reuters is no longer available.