Anti-Spam Legislation

Anti-Spam Legislation

President expected to sign by end of 2003

The House this week cast the final vote on a bipartisan bill to combat unsolicited commercial e-mail. At press time, the President had indicated that he will sign the bill by the end of the year.

The bill would require senders to include a legitimate return e-mail and physical postal address and functioning opt-out mechanism, provide clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity to opt-out, and to clearly identify messages that have pornographic or sexual content as such.

Although the bill would not ban unsolicited commercial e-mails, it prohibits senders from falsifying or disguising their true identity and bans the use of incorrect, misleading, or fraudulent subject lines.

The bill also calls on the Federal Trade Commission to develop a plan for establishing a nationwide Do-Not-E-mail registry.