DECEMBER 2003
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Federal Anti-Spam Act
President Signs First U.S. Attempt to Stop Spam
President Bush signed the new anti-spam law into effect on December 16, 2003. While the enacted legislation has not been reviewed at the time ITL was issued, Senate Bill 771 is very close to the final version of the Anti-Spam Act. This act, while being called ineffective by many commentators, is at least a first step in what will be a long war against spam. While there is clearly much left to do, it was and is unrealistic to assume that spam will be cured by a single piece of legislation.
Unfortunately, in the language of the Anti-Spam Act, Congress choose to supercede and nullify thirty seven state anti-spam laws, many of which were stronger than the new Anti-Spam Act. However, the ability to enforce anti-spam legislation on a state by state basis is a matter of doubt. The Internet is a world wide communications medium. Even the power of the United States government will be of limited effect, due to the amount of spam generated from outside of the United States, particularly in Asia. Eventually it will be necessary to deal with spam by international treaty. For now, we have taken a first step.
Based on Senate 771, a summary of the provisions of the Act include the following:
- It prohibits the use of false or disguised sender's identity,
- It prohibits the use of incorrect, misleading or fraudulent subject matter lines in headers,
- It requires the inclusion of an authentic email and physical postal address for the sender, which will permit the recipient to communicate with the sender,
- It requires a clear and conspicuous notice that the recipient has the opportunity to opt-out of receiving further e-mails from the same source,
- It requires that the opt-out mechanism be functional and that e-mail senders honor opt-out requests,
- It requires clear and conspicuous notice on the subject line that the message is an advertisement or solicitation,
- It requires messages with pornographic or sexual content to be clearly identified,
- It calls upon the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to develop a national "do-not-spam" registry that would be comparable to the FTC's telemarketer "do-not-call" registry.
Because of time limitations, this is a very cursory review. In an upcoming edition, ITL will have a more in depth examination of the new law and what options can be used to enforce the law against violators. We will also take a look at anti-spam restrictions in the EU and around the world. In the mean time, both those who send and those who receive unwarranted amounts of e-mail should be aware of the new rules.
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