E-mail marketing firm e360 has filed charges against members of online discussion forum Nanae for defamation of character and tortious interference.
Dave Linhardt, e360 CEO, who also sued spam-filtering firm Spamhaus and won last September, filed the complaint in an Illinois federal court March 7.
He claims that defendants Mark James Ferguson, Susan Wilson, Kelly Chien, Tim Skivirin, Unknown person A.K.A. Fudo and Unknown person A.K.A. Morley Dotes has referred to e360 as a “spammer” and that mambers of the forum have tried to interfere in its relationship with Time Warner, e360’s bandwidth provider.
“What we’re trying to do with this new suit is to get to the truth of what’s behind these Internet forums,” he said. “They incorrectly have been calling us ‘spammers’ on their site. Also, they have been signing up for our e-mail newsletters and then collecting, like, 20 over a few weeks, then marking them all as spam in the same day, interfering with our relationship with our ISP.”
Nanae, a Usenet newsgroup whose Web site claims to be “dedicated to discussing e-mail spamming,” did not immediately return e-mails for comment.
E360 powers various e-commerce sites and e-mail marketing communications, as well as hosting its own e-commerce business that sells handbags and sunglasses at www.bargaindepot.net.
Last September e360 won a case against UK-based spam-filtering firm Spamhaus, who incorrectly blacklisted e360. Spamhaus has yet to pay any of the $11.7 million that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered it to pay.
Spamhaus filed an action to appeal the case last week. E360 continues to fight for the ruling.
“We are asking the judge to hold Spamhaus in contempt of court for not complying with the federal mandate,” Mr. Linhardt said. “They continue to list us, they continue to smear our name and they continue to not follow the judge’s ruling.”
