CDA Immunity

Hi. I filed a lawsuit against TRUSTe, Microsoft, Cisco and Comcast over IP address blacklisting for e-mail. To make a long story short, Microsoft Frontbridge put my mail server on their "blacklist.zap" that caused some of my e-mail to bounce. In a different situation Comcast kept blocking my outbound e-mail from my home account (port 25 blocking). Comcast kept changing the story and eventually claimed Cisco IronPort's SenderBase.org was the issue (they later blamed SpamHaus but that claim does not seem credible).

In both these situations I invoked the online privacy policies and asked to see the information they collected that led to be being labeled a "spammer." None of them would give me any of the information and Comcast won't let me see any of my account records at this point. (Comcast told me it didn't matter what their privacy policy said, I wasn't getting the information). I went through the TRUSTe "Watchdog" system and that did no good so I filed suit.

Now Microsoft, Cisco and Comcast are asking the court for immunity under the Communications Decency Act. I am claiming there should not be immunity because:

-Nobody has ever produced any actual e-mail I sent so there is no "offensive material" (even incorrectly identified "offensive material"). For instance, if some just says "John is a spammer" and there is no actual piece of e-mail then immunity does not apply because there is no offensive material.

-If a company were to violate their privacy policy then "bad faith" comes into play and immunity does not apply. If a company would have immunity no matter what their privacy policy said then they could publish a completely false policy and never be liable. In the case of Cisco they claim to operate a "credit reporting service for e-mail." I understand a credit reporting service allows users to review and correct their report. I make a number of claims of violations of the NJ Consumer Fraud Act relating to their policies and other claims.

-In the case of Comcast they blocked my outbound e-mail so they are not protecting their "users." They are blocking e-mail to people completely unrelated to Comcast so immunity does not apply.

-In the case of Comcast they told me if I signed up for a business account (and paid them more) there would be no blocking. They never explained how a claimed security issue would go away by getting different level of service. Since the blocking is based on the amount of money paid immunity does not apply.

-In the case of Microsoft FrontBridge and Cisco IronPort they operate paid services to send e-mail. It appears that those who subscribe to their services don't get blacklisted while those that do not are subject to having their e-mail blocked. I call this a modern day shakedown technique and immunity does not apply.

It is also interesting to note that Microsoft, Cisco and TRUSTe have all claimed in court documents that their web site privacy policies are all "broad statements of policy" and not contracts.

By searching on things like “blacklist.zap” “Senderbase Reputation Score” you can see some of the complaints about people being blacklisted. Microsoft Frontbridge seems to tag many small e-mail servers. Some law firms seems to have been added because they often run their own e-mail due to security and archiving requirements.

Information about my case is available at http://Lawsuit.Privacy.net