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Cornucopia Of Spam Bills
frankie writes "Anti-spam legislation is getting serious attention from the U.S. Congress and the media. Several bills are on the front burner, including REDUCE, CAN SPAM, and a RICO amendment. However, the strongest contender is a new bill sponsored by Billy Tauzin (R-La.). It would allow spam from any company you've done business with in the past 3 years, override stronger state laws, and block private lawsuits. You can complain now or complain more later."
In recent weeks, several pieces of legislation have been proposed in the US Congress. We are currently preparing analyses and will publish them on the website as soon as they are available. However, at present we have seen no legislative proposals that CAUCE is prepared to endorse.
On April 30, 2003, CAUCE joined a number of other consumer groups in expressing opposition to the Burns-Wyden CAN-SPAM Act:
[This letter was published April 28 for delivery to the FTC April 30.]
We, the undersigned groups, representing consumer interests, urge Congress to pass legislation to empower individuals to act against senders of Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE). The leading bill currently before Congress, S.877 (CAN-SPAM Act of 2003) does not meet two requirements that we consider essential: an opt-in policy, and a private right of action.
Because spammers impose costs on recipients, the correct policy is to prohibit it, just as Congress prohibited junk faxes in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA). An acceptable alternative would be to enable network owners such as ISPs to post an electronic No Spamming sign, as was done in the 106th Congress's H.R. 3113, which passed the House. An opt-out policy, which is taken in S. 877, will not significantly reduce the widespread damage to consumers' interests and confidence.
The second essential requirement is that recipients of UCE have a private right of action. Liquidated damages of $500, as in the TCPA, are appropriate. ISPs should also have a right of action, but leaving enforcement solely to them, or state or federal regulators would leave far too many spammers breaking the law.
Beyond these fundamental requirements are numerous details, including a narrow exemption for existing business relationships such as the one that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) arrived at in their Telemarketing Sales Rule this year.
The definition of a solicitation should be carefully limited to avoid any impact on non-commercial speech, such as speech about religion or politics. Measures against typical spammer tactics such as the falsification of return addresses and other headers are desirable but not sufficient.
We urge members of Congress to pass anti-spam legislation with an opt-in policy and a private right of action. We also ask the FTC to recommend and support such legislation.
Respectfully
Jason Catlett, President, Junkbusters Corp.
Jeff Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy
Tom Geller, Secretary, SpamCon Foundation
Beth Givens, Director, Privacy Rights Clearing House
Ken McEldowney, Executive Director, Consumer Action
Scott Hazen Mueller, Chairman, CAUCE.org (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
Chris Murray, Legislative Counsel, Consumers Union
Gary Ruskin, Executive Director, Commercial Alert
Some synopses:
- REDUCE: Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Professor Lawrence Lessig's plan to set a bounty for citizens catching spammers
- CAN-SPAM: Sen. Conrad Burns et al, requires valid headers and working opt-out, but doesn't allow private lawsuits
- Do-Not-Spam: Sen. Chuck Schumer's proposal covers everything from CAN-SPAM plus has a national do-not-email registry and bans address harvesting.
And there's lots of others.