An Australian sick of receiving junk e-mail was cleared by a Perth court yesterday after a marketing company claimed he deleted business by getting it on an anti-spam blacklist.
A judge dismissed the case against Joseph McNicol lodged by Perth company T3-Direct, Australia's ABC Radio reported.
Company director Wayne Mansfield claimed McNicol passed on information that led to its millions of junk e-mails being blocked by Internet service providers.
The Perth court found there was no evidence to support the company's claim.
Mansfield promised to take other anti-spam campaigners to court if he had won his world-first claim against large-scale electronic-mail marketers.
Outside the court, McNicol's lawyer Jeremy Malcolm hailed the decision as a victory with international ramifications.
"This will certainly be a message to the unsolicited bulk e-mail industry that the courts aren't going to come down on their side just because they've got the resources to back up a legal claim," Malcolm said.
The case had drawn worldwide interest with McNicol's court costs being paid for through international donations.
McNicol argued that a loss in court would open up the Internet to an avalanche of junk e-mails.
"If the spammers win this case they silence any opposition to junk e-mail," he said before the hearing began.
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