The University can block unsolicited e-mail without violating a federal anti-spam law, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ruled Wednesday.
White Buffalo Ventures, LLP, which owns www.longhornsingles.com, sued the University to force it to accept and distribute its advertisements to students, faculty and staff with UT e-mail addresses listed in the directory.
The company insisted the solicitations were commercial speech protected by the First Amendment and legal under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. The University had blocked incoming e-mails from the Web site to everyone with mail.utexas.edu e-mail address suffixes.
"This affirms that universities can decide who it can accept communications from," said Paco Felici, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott, who represented the University in the case. "It does not violate the spirit of the First Amendment."
White Buffalo Ventures is based in Austin and operates almost 100 dating Web sites targeted at universities.
"Our position is we hate illegal spammers, too. We are happy to have UT block illegal spam," said Brad Armstrong, chief executive officer of White Buffalo Ventures. "Here we are, an honest company, trying to do business, pay taxes and raise our children in Austin, and we get punished for all the illegal spammers."
Armstrong said his company bought the e-mail addresses from the University, and he can't understand why it would sell him the e-mail addresses and then not allow him to use them.
When he wouldn't stop e-mailing UT addresses, Armstrong said, the University temporarily blocked access to www.longhornsingles.com from terminals on campus.
"It seems a bit paternalistic to me," Armstrong said. "Other universities leave it up to the adult student to decide what they want to filter."
The University has a policy against sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to addresses in its system.
"Just because you're a legal spammer doesn't mean that every [Internet service provider] has to permit you to send your spam through their system," said Lee Smith, vice president for institutional relations and legal affairs.
Unsolicited e-mails waste students' time and slow down server operations, he said.
"Within legal limits, we're doing the best we can to block spam," Smith said. "The court just upheld our policies. It doesn't change anything."
E-mail addresses listed in the UT directory are public information. Texas law requires the University to provide them unless the individuals opt out of the directory.
Smith said the University "is not in the business of selling e-mail addresses," and the money Armstrong said he paid for the list must have been the processing fee for the information request.
White Buffalo Ventures is considering an appeal.
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