In Earthlink, Inc. v. Andy Pope, et al., the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently held that defendant spammers could be sued in Georgia even though they resided in Alabama and dialed in to the Earthlink network from an ISP in Alabama. The Court relied on several key facts in the case to reach this outcome. First, the defendants cloaked the spam messages that they sent to make the messages appear as if they were coming directly from Earthlink. In order to mask these messages, the defendants connected to/from Earthlink's network in Georgia. Further, the defendants made it appear as if their websites were hosted by Earthlink and the Earthlink IP address that the defendants were using was also located in Georgia. Thus, based on these "electronic contacts," the Court found that the defendants could be sued in Georgia. In addition, the Court noted that under the "effects" test, the defendants could also be sued in Georgia given the fact that their actions and conducted had "effects" in Georgia.
Keywords: jurisdiction, venue, spam
Full text of the decision is available at: http://op.bna.com/pl.nsf/r?Open=dapn-6u2qzr.
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