A federal judge has handed a major victory to anti-spam crusaders Spamhaus, slashing an $11.7m verdict to just $27,002. US Judge Charles P. Kocoras of the Eastern District of Illinois said the plaintiffs, e360 Insight and its founder David Linhardt, failed to credibly calculate the damage that resulted when its promotional emails were targeted by Spamhaus.
e360 sued Spamhaus in 2006 alleging defamation, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage and interference with existing contracts.

e360 claimed that about 3 billion of the more than 6.6 billion emails it sent on behalf of clients were blocked by service providers who subscribed to the Spamhaus real-time blacklist. The court ruled in e360's favor after the volunteer anti-spam group withdrew from the case. A judgment of $11.7m was ultimately entered against Spamhaus.

An appeals court ultimately junked that ruling and sent the question of damages back to the lower court. At a trial in March, e360 argued once again it was entitled to astronomical damages that at different points was calculated at $135m, $122m, and $30m. Kocoras rejected all three amounts.

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