Diebold, manufacturer of electronic voting machinery, announced today it will drop plans to sue websites that have published documents about security leaks.

A Diebold attorney promised in a conference call Monday with U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel that it would not sue dozens of students, computer scientists and ISP operators who received cease-and-desist letters from August to October.

Diebold also promised not to file lawsuits against two Swarthmore College students and a San Francisco-based Internet service provider for copyright infringement, according to a motion that company attorneys filed Nov. 24 in San Jose's federal court.

A big thanks is due the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which represented the students and service provider involved. Plus, EFF is promising to stay on the case:

EFF plans to continue with its case against Diebold, arguing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that Diebold must pay damages for intimidating Internet service providers. The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 9.