Spam hearing: E-mail tax, international treaty proposed

"I'm told that there's a lot of cost factors in reading this e-mail," Scelson said. "When you read this e-mail, you go through and push 'delete.' But when you're at home (reading postal mail), you have to walk outside, take this junk mail out of the box, read this junk mail -- have you thought about how much chemicals, pollution and trees that are involved with this? And then you've got to throw it away."

Scelson threw his own spam prevention idea into the mix. He advocated that all e-mail applications include a "no bulk e-mail" box that customers can check, forcing bulk e-mail to bounce back to the sender. "It costs no money on AOL's end and no money on our end," he said. "The system I proposed costs no money and gives the power back to the people. I agree that there needs to be a solution, but just don't take the freedom away from the individual, this should be their right, not for the carriers to say, 'We're going to shut you down or we're going to block you.' "

Committee members Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican, and Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, promoted their Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, which outlaws false e-mail headers and requires senders of bulk commercial e-mail to provide legitimate addresses where people can opt out of future e-mail. But antispam activists have criticized the bill for allowing only fines of $10 per e-mail, instead of requiring that bulk e-mailers receive permission from people before sending them e-mail.

During the hearing, Commissioner Orson Swindle of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) repeated criticisms of CAN-SPAM and other antispam legislation voiced at an FTC spam forum held April 30 to May 2. Internet users shouldn't have to opt out of every piece of junk e-mail they receive, he said, but he complained that companies that send e-mail don't seem to have the will to deal with the problem because they might hurt their own marketing opportunities.

Swindle advocated a technological solution that would allow Internet users to block all e-mail except from people in their address books. "Give the consumer the power," he said. "Empower the consumer to say no to what's coming into his mailbox."

The problem with spam is that it's difficult to find the spammers, calling into question the effectiveness of most legislation, Swindle said. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, has proposed charging some spammers with racketeering offenses, and Swindle said he's close to supporting criminal penalties for some spammers.

"What we need are a couple of good hangings," Swindle said. "I have not seen one piece of legislation that I think would be adequate."

Swindle's comments prompted Wyden to question why the FTC voiced support for an earlier version of the CAN-SPAM bill, one version of which was passed out of the Senate committee last year but not voted on before the entire Senate. "When you have the real scofflaws, when you have the real bad actors, those are not people who are paying attention to what industry self-regulatory initiatives are all about," he said, countering Swindle's calls for the industry to police its own. "That's why we've got to move the government quickly."