On November 22, the House approved, 392-5, an amended version of S. 877, legislation that would make it a federal crime to send fraudulent or deceptive e-mail “spam.” The Senate approved the original measure on October 22 (see The Source, 10/24/03), then made technical changes to the House-passed version by unanimous consent on November 25. That action has sent it back to the House for final approval.
Sponsored by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), the CAN-SPAM Act would prohibit the use of false or deceptive headers on e-mail messages, which “spammers” often use to disguise their identities. All advertisements would have to display legitimate return addresses and the abbreviation “ADV” so that recipients could file them away.
The bill would require senders of sexually explicit commercial e-mail to place a notice in the subject header of each message and add an opening page to all copies of their e-mail being sent to unknown recipients.
S. 877 would ban “dictionary attacks,” which use automated software to generate millions of permutations of e-mail addresses in hopes of finding a valid address. It also would ban the practice of “harvesting” e-mail addresses from other Web sites.
Under the measure, violators could be subject to fines of $250 per e-mail and up to $6 million for willful violations. Less severe monetary penalties were included in the original Senate bill.
S. 877 would incorporate certain criminal penalty provisions included in a bill (S. 1293) approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in September (see The Source, 9/26/03). Under the Criminal Spam Act, those spammers who send out more than 2,500 messages in any 24-hour period would be subject to three years in prison. Violators could be imprisoned for up to five years if the spam advertises a fraudulent scheme or child pornography, or leads to identify theft.
The bill also would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to create a “do-not-e-mail” list similar to the “do-not-call” registry that was recently established to evade telemarketers.
Speaking in support of the legislation, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) stated that the problem of spam “has become so prolific that by the end of this year half of all e-mails sent will be spam.” She added, “The numbers are staggering: 76 billion spam e-mails will be delivered in 2003; 50 percent of kids have received e-mails containing pornographic or sexually explicit information; and U.S. businesses will spend close to $10 billion to fight spam this year.”
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), sponsor of legislation (H.R. 2515) with similar anti-spam provisions, stated, “I think today is a great victory for consumers and for parents. Parents should not have to worry about the kinds of things coming into their kids’ inboxes. For the first time, Americans who use the Internet and get e-mail will have the right to say ‘take me off your list, I do not want this in my house.’ That is a tremendous right to be given to citizens in this nation.”
