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Somebody hasn’t read all of the CAN-SPAM Act

4 November 2010

Today’s big news appears to be a couple of lawsuits filed by Holomaxx Technologies. One was filed against Yahoo and Cisco, and the other against Microsoft and Return Path. In both, Holomaxx makes some statements that indicate it doesn’t have a firm grasp of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Here’s a snippet:

HOLOMAXX is therefore entitled to:

A declaration that:

  1. HOLOMAXX’s current email practices, as set forth herein, are in accord with the Can-Spam Act;
  2. Email sent by HOLOMAXX in accord with such practices are not spam; and
  3. HOLOMAXX has the right to send such legitimate, non-spam emails directly to the intended recipient’s primary inbox, without interception, deprioritization, blocking, delay, or other interference.

While it may be true that Holomaxx’s practices comply with the requirements of CAN-SPAM, there are two major obstacles to winning anything based upon CAN-SPAM compliance.  As Al Iverson points out: “Doesn’t CDA Section 230 already nullify Holomaxx’s claims here?”

Read moreIt’s hard being in court so much

My understanding is that the CDA generally applies to filtering and blocking decisions.  If nothing else, e360 Insight’s loss to Comcast points this out.  Also, CAN-SPAM itself contains this (ominous for Holomaxx) bit:

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to have any effect on the lawfulness or unlawfulness, under any other provision of law, of the adoption, implementation, or enforcement by a provider of Internet access service of a policy of declining to transmit, route, relay, handle, or store certain types of electronic mail messages.​*​

So, I guess we can congratulate Holomaxx on following the law. But we need to also remember that compliance with the law does not guarantee that your email will be delivered at all, much less delivered to the inbox.

Professor Goldman posted the case filed against Yahoo:

Complaint, Holomaxx Tech. Corp. v. Yahoo!, Inc., No. 5:10-cv-04926 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 29, 2010).
Read moreSending email to wireless domains?

And I grabbed the complaint filed against Microsoft:

Complaint, Holomaxx Tech. Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., No. 5:10-cv-04924 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 29, 2010).
  1. ​*​
    15 USC § 7707(c)
Mickey Chandler
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