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e360 Insight last week suffered a serious setback in its ongoing legal battles to force ISPs to deliver its e-mail when a judge dismissed the marketing firm’s lawsuit against Comcast.

In a decision that may have legal ramifications for all e-mail marketers who think their messages are being unfairly blocked by ISPs, Judge James B. Zagel in U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois ruled that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects Comcast from being held liable for mistakenly blocking even permission-based e-mail when it’s part of a good-faith effort to protect its subscribers from spam.

Comcast is America’s No. 2 Internet service provider with 13.2 million subscribers.

E360 CEO Dave Linhardt sued Comcast in January, accusing the broadband cable provider of unfairly blocking messages that he claimed were permission based.

The complaint claimed that because e360’s e-mails comply with the Can-Spam Act, Comcast’s actions violated Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, violated the first amendment of the Constitution, wrongly interfered with e360’s business and constituted unfair and deceptive business practices.

However, Judge Zagel ruled that compliance with Can Spam "does not evict the right of the provider to make its own good faith judgment to block mailings."

He added: "Under the law, a mistaken choice to block, if made in good faith, cannot be the basis for liability under federal or state law." The judge also ruled that Comcast had acted in good faith when it blocked e360’s messages.

Comcast countersued e360 in March, accusing Linhardt and various business entities associated with him of sending spam to Comcast subscribers, using misleading or false headers and subject lines, selling counterfeit goods, falsely advertising the goods as free, and fabricating opt-in records.

It is unclear if Comcast plans to drop its countersuit as a result of Judge Zagel’s ruling. A call to the ISP was not returned on Friday.

The Comcast battle is one of a series of legal fights Linhardt is engaged in.

He is suing members of the Nanae online anti-spam discussion group. He is also being sued in separate actions by a lawyer in Ohio and an anti-spammer in California.

Linhardt has also been in a long legal battle with anti-spam outfit Spamhaus. He won an $11.7 million default judgment against Spamhaus in 2006 when representatives of the anti-spam blacklister failed to show up to defend themselves in court.

Spamhaus appealed the judgment. A federal appeals court vacated it last September, and sent it back to district court to recalculate damages.

Linhardt declined comment for this article.