I don't understand why this is such a big issue with so many people. My HotMail account filters out 90% of the spam. The rest is easy to get rid of. No worse than dumping junk mail. I guess people don't have enough to complain about.
washingtonpost.com
Bill To Restrict 'Spam' E-Mail Nears Final Passage
By CQ Staff
Congressional Quarterly
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; 5:45 PM
Coming on the heels of federal regulatory action aimed at reducing often annoying telemarketing phone calls, Congress is poised to approve legislation that would crack down on junk e-mail messages, commonly referred to as "spam." One feature of the measure, which is expected to gain final House approval when lawmakers return Dec. 8, is authority for the Federal Trade Commission to create a "do not spam" registry.
The House on Nov. 22 passed a compromise version of the bill by a 392-5 tally. The Senate followed suit, by voice vote, on Nov. 25. Some technical changes made by the Senate will require the House to act one more time before the bill heads to the White House for President Bush's expected signature.
The bill (S 877) would impose stiff financial penalties and prison time for the most prolific purveyors of spam. The underlying premise of the bill is an "opt out" mechanism in which all spammers must honor a recipient's request to be taken off future solicitations. Violations could lead to a maximum of five years in prison, and up to $6 million in fines and damages.
The measure also would force senders of pornographic spam to conceal any sexually explicit images and would outlaw deceptive subject headers. The bill would require spammers to have a valid return e-mail address as well as a physical address, a provision aimed at forcing fraudulent, off-shore or otherwise deceptive spammers to reveal themselves. The legislation aims to take away the common technological tools that junk e-mailers use to generate mass e-mail lists. One such technique that would be banned is "harvesting," in which the sender uses automated software to scoop up millions of e-mail addresses from the Internet.
One late addition to the bill was a provision to allow wireless phone users to block all commercial e-mail messages. While wireless spam is not yet a problem for U.S. cell phone users, it has become a major issue in Europe and Asia, where mobile phone users rely more heavily on their wireless devices for e-mail.
The bill is not as strict as the most ardent anti-spam advocates called for, but is still more stringent than some in the marketing industry wanted. The bill would pre-empt the patchwork of three dozen state laws, meaning that more restrictive state anti-spam laws, such as one California passed this year, would be superseded by the federal legislation. Even the most optimistic lawmakers, lobbyists and technology experts say an anti-spam law will not stop the barrage of Viagra peddlers, fly-by-night mortgage bankers and pornographers from clogging the arteries of the Internet.
Approximately 140 million Americans regularly use e-mail, and the ease of obtaining large lists of these e-mail addresses has made e-mail a popular and low-cost means for individuals, organizations and businesses to market goods and services to consumers. In addition to legitimate businesses that use commercial e-mail as a method for marketing products or services, e-mail has become a favored mechanism of those who seek to defraud consumers and make a living by preying on unsuspecting e-mail users and those new to the Internet.
According to some estimates, spam accounts for considerably more than half of all global e-mail traffic, with this growth expected to continue. The volume not only inconveniences and annoys recipients, it also imposes a severe financial cost on Internet service providers whose systems get clogged with spam and who have repeatedly tried to block the messages, with only limited success.
The bill has the support of a diverse group of interests, ranging from the Direct Marketing Association to Microsoft Corp.
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