On Monday self-described "Spam King" Scott Richter won a temporary restraining order (TRO) in a U.S. District Court against spam blocklist SpamCop. By causing spam sent by his Optinrealbig bulk e-mail house to be blocked by ISPs, the court agreed SpamCop was interfering with Richter's business and ordered it to stop reporting Optin's spam until the case goes to trial later this month.

This morning SpamCop's new parent company, IronPort Systems, issued a statement announcing it had succeeded in having the TRO dissolved. "The TRO was presented and considered ex parte, meaning Optinrealbig's application was decided without the benefit of receiving argument or evidence from SpamCop. May 11, 2004, after considering SpamCop's opposition papers, the Court issued an order dissolving yesterday's TRO."

That the TRO was in effect for even a day is disconcerting. After all, SpamCop doesn't itself block any e-mail - it just reports the complaints of spam abuse it receives to ISPs and others who can decide for themselves what action to take. Publishing anonymous complaints and letting those who read them decide what to do about it … does that familiar? It should, because it's what I do in the GripeLog. In that sense, the TRO wasn't just an attack on the blacklist approach to fighting spam, it was a restraint on First Amendment rights.

Even though the court came to its senses on the TRO once it heard SpamCop's side of the story, there are still some grave dangers ahead if and when this case does go to trial. As Richter's statements in the press have made clear, he believes he has one very big ally on his side in this case: the Can-Spam Act. And he might very well be right. The fact is that federal law has legalized spam, so can blacklists and ISPs continue to block spam that they can't prove violates the law? We may soon find out.