Antispam advocates question Senate bill

WASHINGTON - A bill attempting to regulate the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail passed the U.S. Senate last week, but many antispam advocates say the bill would have little impact on the amount of spam coming into e-mail users' in-boxes.

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, which the Senate approved 97-0 late last Wednesday, requires e-mail users to opt out of unwanted commercial e-mail, instead of requiring e-mail senders to get opt-in permission, and the bill can do little to stem the tide of spam coming from outside the U.S., said vendors of antispam technologies and at least one consumer advocacy group.

The bill gives consumers little control over spam, said Ray Everett-Church, counsel for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE). Everett-Church said he was encouraged that the final version of the bill included an amendment requiring the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to study the possibility of a national do-not-spam e-mail registry, but the bill only authorizes the agency to create such a list, rather than requiring it to do so.

A law Congress passed in 1991 authorized the Federal Communications Commission to create a national do-not-call telemarketing registry, and it went into effect earlier this month -- 12 years later, Everett-Church noted. The FTC has expressed concerns about creating and maintaining a massive do-not-spam list, and the opt-out approach of CAN-SPAM basically legalizes spammers to send out e-mail until they're told to stop, he added.

"Until the FTC decides whether or not they care to create a do-not-e-mail list, (CAN-SPAM) creates essentially carte blanche permission for spammers to send unlimited quantities of e-mail to the consumer," Everett-Church said. "I'm deeply concerned that we may never see a do-not-e-mail list, and until such a time as we do, we will see an unlimited right to see spam."

CAN-SPAM includes a requirement that commercial e-mail include valid opt-out mechanisms and allows fines of up to $100 per piece of spam sent with misleading header information, with fines up to $3 million allowed for some types of spam. But Everett-Church questioned whether state and federal law enforcement agencies would have the time to go after spammers without larger budgets for enforcement, which CAN-SPAM does not provide. The FTC and state attorneys general would be responsible for most spam enforcement under the bill.

The bill's cosponsors, Senators Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican, and Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, defended the bill, saying it was one necessary piece in a multipronged fight against unsolicited commercial e-mail. Technology will also need to play a part in eliminating spam, but CAN-SPAM should send a "strong message" to spammers, said a Burns spokeswoman.

"No legislation will be a silver bullet against spam, but the Burns-Wyden legislation gives consumers considerable control over the e-mail coming to their in-boxes by backing up the law's requirements with stiff civil and criminal penalties," added a spokeswoman for Wyden, responding by e-mail. "This is a good step toward taking back the Internet from the 'kingpin spammers' -- the worst actors of the online world."