Spamming hall of shame in SA: good news

The South Gauteng High Court dismissed, with costs, an application by Ketler Investments to be removed from the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa’s (ISPA’s) spam “Hall of Shame”.

ISPA released its first ‘Hall of Shame’ report in September 2008, naming and shaming the country’s top spammers.

One of its “repeat offenders”, Ketler Presentations, was not pleased with its name appearing in this list, and applied to the High Court in 2012 to try to force ISPA to remove its name from ISPA’s Hall of Shame web page.

The legal battle with Ketler put ISPA’s Hall of Shame on hold, but the court ruling in favour of ISPA now paves the way to continue to name and shame South African companies who send out spam.

ISPA said that it is gratified with the dismissal of the application. “This vindicates ISPA’s efforts to combat spam originating in South Africa as well as being a victory for freedom of speech,” the association said in a statement.

ISPA said it will issue more detailed comments on the case once the judge releases his reasons for the dismissal next week.

More on ISPA’s Hall of Shame

ISPA Spam Hall of Shame on hold

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