Privacy advocates: Amended spam bill lacks teeth

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By Jennifer DiSabatino

(IDG) -- When Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) introduced legislation in February to prevent or greatly reduce unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as spam, privacy advocates cheered and lent their support.

But then some trade associations complained, and shortly thereafter, the bill was amended in a congressional committee, stripped of some of its enforcement strengths.

Privacy advocates now say the changes have taken the teeth out of the bill, and they're lining up to fight back.

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"This bill is far too weak," said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp., a privacy advocacy organization in Green Brook, N.J.

The bill is now before the House Judiciary Committee, where it awaits approval before going to a full vote by the House. A similar bill in the Senate has also provoked disapproval from privacy advocates. That bill is also stuck in committee (see "Can Congress can spam?," link below).

Junkbusters and the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) are two of the privacy advocates that have vowed to fight the amended version of the bill, known as House Resolution 718. The primary problem, said Catlett, is that the bill is centered around the so-called opt-in model. That means that Internet service providers and end users must first receive spam before they can request not to be sent more.

Meanwhile, privacy advocates at CAUCE maintain that this is a property protection issue and argue that the owners of property, such as servers or PCs, shouldn't be forced to spend money to protect themselves before intrusion is considered illegal.

"So if a business has their e-mail shut down for a day because of spam, they have to clean up their e-mail disaster, then send an opt-out request, and only after some reasonable time can they defend themselves against that one entity. Of course, this process would only apply to one marketer at a time; the innocent recipient would have to go through the entire process again with each new spammer who targets them. The goal with previous versions of [this section of the bill] was to allow businesses and ISPs to avoid costs in the first place," according to a statement posted on the CAUCE Web site.

In a March 20 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, 18 trade groups and companies, primarily from the financial services sector, attacked the original version of the bill.

Catlett said it's curious that the American Bankers Association and other financial institutions have recently expressed concerns about impeding electronic marketing.

"These companies don't currently spam," he said. This move may indicate that they plan to move their off-line marketing of preapproved credit cards onto the Net, he added.

The bill criminalizes including false sender information and other false header information and requires unsolicited commercial e-mail to be labeled as such.

The fines for violations are up to $500 per message, with a $50,000 limit per spammer.

Wilson said the bill will reduce the amount of spam because of the penalties, just as a similar law against unsolicited faxes did a few years ago.

"Junk faxes dried up after that. People stopped doing it," Wilson said.

Catlett points out one difference. Junk faxes are, by law, opt-in. That means the recipient has to request the fax before it is sent.

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September 26, 2000
Managing the e-mail explosion
September 6, 2000
Brightmail releases anti-virus, anti-spam software
August 10, 2000
Spam debate goes to Washington
May 5, 2000

Can Congress can spam?
(The Industry Standard)
Anti-spam bill passes U.S. subcommittee
(IDG.net)
Congress doesn't want to make money fast
(The Industry Standard)
Unsolicited e-mail: What the devil is wrong with it?
(InfoWorld.com)
Controlling unsolicited bulk e-mail
(Unix Insider)
Consumer Watch: Hold the spam--maybe
(PCWorld.com)
U.S. representatives mount attack on spam
(IDG.net)
The spam-tastic year 2000
(PCWorld.com)

Junkbusters Corp.
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email

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