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SI - Site Forums : SI Spammer Hall of Fame -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: c.horn who wrote (1199)	2/23/2000 4:22:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4105

(COMTEX) B: Colorado House Panel Passes Bill Requiring Label on Internet 'Spam' Feb. 18 (The Denver Post/KRTBN)--Internet spammers would have to slap a crystal-clear "advertisement" label on all electronic junk mail and provide an easy way for consumers to scratch their names from mailing lists under a bill passed Thursday by a state House committee. Before approving the bill by a 10-2 vote, the House Business Affairs and Labor Commitee toughened the rules further by adding politicians and nonprofit groups to the mailers who must use the dreaded "ADV:" label. The tag must appear at the beginning of any junk mail's subject memo, which appears in consumers' lists of new e-mail and guides them on what they wish to read. Many advertisers work overtime to make their messages deceptive, with pornography sites, for example, using a false personal return address and "Did you get my message?" or "The server is down" as the subject. Colorado residents might not get "less garbage" in their computer mailboxes, said HB 1309 sponsor Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield. But with the law in place, "they will have identified garbage" to sift through, he said. The bill, which now moves to the House floor for another vote, would require the "ADV:" label on all unsolicited bulk mail. It also would require mailers to use a legitimate return address and offer consumers a way to remove themselves from future mailings, and it would prohibit stealing third-party electronic addresses to make mail look more legitimate. Any individual computer user receiving mail that violates the law could sue the sender for $10 for each message. But the bill also allows that customer's Internet service provider to collect hundreds or thousands of bad messages sent through its main computers and sue the mailer for $10 on each one, providing the incentive of millions of dollars in potential damages. Mitchell said he wanted to create tools allowing the private sector to clean up the Internet, not the government. Backers noted that it does not prohibit commercial messages but merely demands honesty. "It only requires truth in packaging and truth in advertising," Mitchell said. The Direct Marketing Association objected to the bill, saying it could hurt the rapid growth of Internet commerce and confuse businesses who will have to comply with similar laws proliferating in other states. "This is the World Wide Web," objected Kathy Otis, a spokeswoman for the direct marketers. "You're passing a law affecting the whole world." She said the industry was working on its own worldwide system allowing people to opt out of mailing lists. The only groups that won't have to put "ADV:" in the message line are those with a prior business relationship with the customer. The anti-spam bill has the strong backing of Gov. Bill Owens. "This is not a typical left-right issue," said Marc Holtzman, the director of Owens' Office of Innovation and Technology. "This is a unifying issue." By Michael Booth -0- To see more of The Denver Post, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to denverpost.com (c) 2000, The Denver Post. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. END!A$19?DP-JUNK-EMAIL * end of story *