Court deals blow to dating-service spammer

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the university did not run afoul of federal law or the U.S. Constitution when blocking a torrent of spam from White Buffalo Ventures' LonghornSingles.com site.

The University of Texas may "implement the Regents' Rules without violating" spammers' rights, a three-judge panel unanimously concluded.

White Buffalo, an Austin, Texas, start-up that boasts of making "a ton of moolah" by promoting relationship-based Web sites, began its bulk e-mail campaign in February 2003 by filing a freedom of information request that gave it nearly all the university's e-mail addresses. Two months later, it began deluging the school's servers with commercial solicitations--and had its Internet addresses blocked after refusing to stop when asked.

Most spammers might halt their efforts at that point, but White Buffalo was unusually determined. It filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas and sought a court injunction protecting what amounted to a right to spam--citing both the federal Can-Spam Act and the First Amendment, which broadly limits a government university's ability to restrict free speech.

The case appears to be the first in which a court considered how the Can-Spam Act--which overrules most state laws dealing with junk e-mail--regulates how a state university can install spam filters.

In its ruling this week, the 5th Circuit refused to overturn a trial judge's opinion siding with the university. It concluded that the Can-Spam Act was never intended to block an Internet service provider, even one that is part of a government-run university, from filtering out unwanted commercial solicitations. But the judges did suggest that the University of Texas could have taken narrower steps to filter e-mail rather than blocking all correspondence from a range of Internet addresses.

Neither the University of Texas nor White Buffalo immediately responded to a request for comment Wednesday.