Torrent search engine TorrentSpy has been issued an unprecedented $110 million for failing to release information on it's users.

This is based on 3,699 "known" infringements TorrentSpy has made with the maximum penalty of $30,000 applied to each one.

The message on the TorrentSpy site states, as of March 24th:

"Friends of TorrentSpy,

We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.

It was a wild ride,

The TorrentSpy Team"

Read full news article: TorrentSpy down for the count [external link]