• PC World
• » Software
• » Browsers & Add-Ons

WASHINGTON -- A federal antispam law may finally become reality: Congress is considering a wide selection of bills combating unwanted e-mail, which both parties love to hate.

Many members of Congress, antispam activists, and marketing groups who want to fight digital junk mail agree that only a federal law will do the trick.

Powerful Partners

The newest antispam bill in the hopper has support from powerful House committee members.

The RID-Spam Act of 2003 (HR 2214) would require e-mail mass-marketers to label their messages as marketing and use valid return addresses. It would enable consumers to opt out of all commercial e-mail, and would allow state and federal lawmakers and ISPs to sue spammers.

The bill, which has seven cosponsors, is now in a House committee.

"E-mail has brought consumers a fast, efficient, and reliable communications medium," says cosponsor William "Billy" Tauzin (R-Louisiana), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"The explosion of spam today threatens to flood the critical arteries of the networks that carry all e-mail, whether consumers want it or not," said Tauzin.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is another prominent cosponsor.

"We are especially pleased to see strong civil and criminal penalties for fraudulent e-mail and meaningful ISP enforcement provisions," said Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft's managing director of federal government affairs.

Bill Revived

Another piece of legislation, the CAN-SPAM bill (S. 877), would fine businesses that break the law. Its approach is similar to that of other legislation that has twice been introduced but not passed.

Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) proposed the bill, which has widespread support from marketing companies and consumer groups.

Some experts say Tauzin's proposal may eclipse it, however.

The powerful House members' backing of RID-Spam, combined with the strong CAN-SPAM bill, "provides our greatest opportunity to date to ensure" that a federal law will pass, said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association.

The Direct Marketing Association supports "responsible e-mail marketing" as a viable way for businesses to advertise.

"We don't think you can put out the legislation and, bam, you'll never see spam again," says Louis Mastria, a spokesperson for the Direct Marketing Association.

"Legislation by itself isn't going to solve anything," Mastria says. "That's why we've gone out of our way to make sure that the antispam strategy that we're pursuing doesn't rely on a sort of silver-bullet approach."

Other Contenders

Several other pieces of antispam legislation lack the widespread support of the RID-Spam and CAN-SPAM bills.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) would require marketers to mark their e-mail messages as advertising. He says he is drafting a bill to set up a "do not spam" list similar to the "do not call" list set up by the Federal Trade Commission.

Schumer says that the Burns-Wyden CAN-SPAM bill doesn't go far enough to protect people from disturbing, unwanted e-mail. His bill would outlaw deceptive subject lines in e-mail and would send violators to jail.

Still another bill, putting a bounty on spammers, was introduced by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California). Her proposal, the Restrict and Eliminate Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (REDUCE) Spam Act (HR 1933), also requires marketing e-mail to be tagged as advertisements. Its bounty-hunting system would pay people who find and bring spammers to the FTC. People who "capture" spammers could get 20 percent of the funds won in prosecutions.

In March, Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota) proposed the Computer Owners' Bill of Rights (S. 563). It would establish a list allowing people to opt out of unwanted e-mail. The bill has no cosponsors and is in a Senate committee.

In a related issue, Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) recently proposed a bill to protect the privacy of hundreds of millions of American wireless telephone subscribers. The legislation, if enacted, would ban unwanted marketing messages sent to mobile phones. The Wireless Telephone Spam Protection Act (HR 122) would amend the Communications Act of 1934. It has 14 cosponsors and is in a House subcommittee.

• See more like this:
• spam,
• antispam,
• legislation,
• law,
• congress,
• legislation,
• rid-spam,
• can-spam,
• bounty,
• racketeering