Mass emailer sues Yahoo, Microsoft, etc for treating it as spammer

Holomaxx Technologies Corp., a Can-Spam compliant bulk emailer, has accused Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco Ironport Systems and Return Path of breaching the wiretapping and other communications laws and wrongly blocking the mass emails it sends on behalf of its clients from reaching intended recipients.

In two separate complaints filed on October 29 in California Northern District Court in San Jose, Holomaxx have accused Yahoo and Microsoft of refusing to transmit the emails sent by the company, while Cisco Ironport and Return Path have been accused of improperly flagging it as a spammer.

Holomaxx claims it is a legitimate email service provider and has been sending out bulk emails for over ten years. It said it requires that its clients acquire their list subscribers in accordance with the Can-Spam Act, which provides federal standards for commercial emails.

The company also said that its clients are required to adhere to its own privacy policy, which has been effect since 2000, with revisions from time to time.

Holomaxx said it accepts clients on a case-by-case basis, based on evidence that they maintain high standards and use legitimate, straightforward (and Can-Spam compliant) practices to build their subscriber lists.

Holomaxx further said that in an average busy month it may send out 10 million emails per day and as it and its clients are wary of being treated as spam by customers, regulators or Internet Service Providers (ISPs), it guards its reputation carefully, adhering scrupulously to industry best practices for sending protocols and customer list management, and monitoring its clients to ensure that they do the same.

However, both Yahoo and Microsoft, Holomaxx has alleged, relies on faulty automated filters and third party information to identify purported spam emails and incorrect determination by the spam filters has branded Holomaxx as a spammer.

Holomaxx has also accused Cisco Ironport and Return Path, which compiles comprehensive data on emailers that allow ISPs and companies to distinguish between legitimate senders and spammers, of giving it a negative reputation and assigning it low sender reputation scores i.e. flagging it as a likely spammer.

Cisco Ironport and Return Path, Holomaxx has alleged, have improperly intercepted emails transmitted through the ISPs and the ISPs have improperly forwarded emails sent through them to Cisco Ironport and Return Path.

All the four companies, Holomaxx said, refuses to reverse their determination and provide any information that would allow it to change its sending practices.

The defendants, Holomaxx said, intentionally intercepted and obtained information from Holomaxx's private communications with its clients and they published false statements to third parties, thereby damaging its excellent reputation as a highly esteemed email service provider.

As a result of defendants' conduct, Holomaxx claims that its reputation has suffered, its business relationships have been disrupted, and it has lost revenues.

Their conduct breaches the Wiretap Act, the Stored Communications Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Wiretapping statute, and California's unfair competition law, Holomaxx has claimed.

Holomaxx has accused them of defamation and interference with contractual relationships and is seeking a broad array of relief against defendants, including injunctive relief, damages, and interestingly, disclosure of the grounds for blocking Holomaxx's emails.