White Buffalo Ventures LLC, the company behind dating outfit
LonghornSingles.com, raised a court action against the University
of Texas in 2003, after the University blocked 59,000 unsolicited
emails sent by it to students.
The company had legitimately obtained the email addresses by
filing a Freedom of Information request with the University, but
had refused to comply with a cease and desist letter sent by the
University after it started to receive complaints from
students.
The blocking was not in breach of White Buffalo’s First
Amendment rights, said the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals,
giving its ruling on Tuesday.
Nor were the emails in breach of the CAN-SPAM Act, said the
Court.
The CAN-SPAM Act also known as the Controlling the
Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act came
into force in January 2004. It established a framework of
administrative, civil and criminal tools to tackle unsolicited
commercial email, including an opt-out requirement, a national
Do-Not-Spam list, and a ban on the sending of fraudulent or
unmarked sexually oriented emails.
The Act also requires that unsolicted emails contain a valid
sender address and an accurately marked subject line. Both of these
were included in the LonghornSingles.com emails.
Nevertheless, the Appeals Court followed an earlier District
Court ruling in favour of the University, which found that the
CAN-SPAM Act “does not preclude a state entity like UT [the
University] from using technological devices [such as] spam-filters
to conserve server space and safeguard the time and resources of
its employees, students, and faculty.”
