Congress Weakens Spam-Fighting Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A congressional committee has yanked the teeth out of a bill designed to curb spam, leaving it with few consumer protection provisions.

The changes by the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee alters the legislation to resemble a bill like one by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), which only requires that spammers use a legitimate return e-mail address. The bill is known as The Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001.

Committee members dropped provisions that would have let consumers sue companies that fail to take them off lists for bulk e-mailings. However, they added provisions that would require companies advertising pornography to clearly label e-mail messages that contain explicit adult content. The act would also permit Internet service providers to sue unrelenting spammers who have caused provable damages.

The original version gave consumers protections such as allowing them to remove themselves from bulk e-mailing lists. If the bulk e-mail companies didn't drop the consumers from the lists, the companies would have been subject to investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and lawsuits from ISPs. Fines could have hit $500 per spam message, up to a maximum liability of $50,000 per case, according to the original legislation.

The bill is sponsored by U.S. Representatives Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) and Gene Green (D-Texas).

Trying to Reinstate Protections

Wilson expresses disappointment in the altering of the bill. She suggests the version approved by the Judiciary Committee will do little to protect families from the flood of junk e-mail landing in their e-mail in-boxes.

The Judiciary Committee cut out all the consumer protection provisions and left the fraud provisions that require spammers to provide legitimate e-mail return addresses and routing information, says Kevin McDermott, a Wilson spokesperson. Wilson will continue to push for the passage of the version of the bill that was approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee in March, he says.

The Wilson-Green bill now moves to the House Rules Committee, which will determine which version goes to the full House for a vote. The Rules Committee is likely to take up the bill in early to mid-June, McDermott says.

Similar antispam legislation brought forward by Wilson and Green was easily approved by the full House in 2000, but it failed to get through the Senate.