A Canadian court has ruled that sending unsolicited commercial email (UCE or spam) is a violation of netiquette, and that ISPs are entitled to disconnect customers for committing such violations. The Superior Court of Ontario found that a Toronto, Canada-based ISP, Nexx Online, was within its rights to terminate service to a commercial client that was allegedly sending 200,000 unsolicited email messages per day.
The judge’s decision rested on a clause in Nexx Online’s Acceptable Use Policy, which stated: The Account Holder agrees to follow generally accepted ‘Netiquette’ when sending email messages or posting newsgroup messages. The judge also noted that Nexx’s upstream provider, Exodus Communications Inc, has a clear anti-spam policy in place, to which Nexx itself had agreed. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) has applauded the decision, saying it breaks new legal ground in Canada.
