Privacy.net sues Microsoft, Cisco, Comcast and TRUSTe

The owner of Privacy.net and Network-Tools.com, Russ Smith, has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, Cisco, Comcast and TRUSTe.

The lawsuit claims that Comcast, Microsoft, and Cisco collected information about Smith’s IP addresses and either put them on a “blacklist” or gave them a poor “Reputation Score.”  Comcast even blocked his communication link with a mail server he operates outside the Comcast network.  The suit claims that in order to collect this information in the first place Comcast, Cisco and Microsoft violated eavesdropping laws.  The suit goes on to claim that Comcast, Microsoft, and Cisco failed to adhere to their privacy policies.  When Smith tried to use the privacy policies of Comcast, Microsoft, and Cisco to correct the spammer accusations the companies balked.  Comcast even told him it didn’t matter what the privacy policy said, he wasn’t getting the information.  He filed complaints with the TRUSTe organization that verifies the privacy policies of Microsoft and Comcast but that did no good.

Previous lawsuits against these “blacklists” have been brought by commercial e-mailers against organizations such as Spamhaus. In this case the accused is not a commercial e-mail, not a spammer, and has no mailing lists of any sort.  The accused has even made presentations at the Federal Trade Commission against spammers and testified at the first “Spam Summit” more than 10 years ago.

For more information see Lawsuit.Privacy.net