09:27 AM CST on Monday, January 9, 2006

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in a dispute between the University of Texas at Austin and an online dating service.

A federal appeals court panel had ruled in August that UT didn't violate LonghornSingles.com when it blocked thousands of unsolicited e-mails.

White Buffalo Ventures, which operates LonghornSingles.com, had appealed the ruling to the full Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and then to the Supreme Court. It contended it had complied with all anti-spam laws and that the university violated its constitutional rights by filtering out 59,000 e-mails in 2003.

White Buffalo also claimed a federal act that allows certain e-mails superseded the university's anti-spam policy.

The Fifth Circuit panel found that the federal anti-spam law, CAN-SPAM, doesn't pre-empt the university's policy and that the policy is permissible under the First Amendment.