 |
| Wilson and Commerce Committee: No More Spam |
June 14, 2000 |
| |
Washington, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act, H.R. 3113, was passed overwhelmingly by the House Commerce Committee. The bill will now move to the House floor where it is expected to receive broad bipartisan support.
“The Internet is a great tool for communication and commerce,” Wilson said. “It’s changing our lives -- largely for the better. But as consumers, we should have the power to stop getting junk e-mail on our computers or on the computers of our children. Some estimates are that 2/3rds of junk e-mail is pornographic. As parents, we should be able to protect our children from seeing that stuff.”
The bill also provides relief for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who now bear the cost of unwanted spam as advertising costs are shifted from the advertiser to the service provider. “I look forward to working with Congressman Green to ensure that this important piece of legislation is enacted into law,” Wilson said.
Unsolicited commercial e-mail, also known as spam, has become a critical consumer protection issue. America OnLine estimates that 30% their e-mail traffic is spam. For ISPs like highway.net and Associated Information Services, spam clogs their systems causing slower service for their customers and in some cases it crashes the entire system.
“We`re being spam-bombed,” complains Steven Fox, co-owner of an Albuquerque, N.M., based ISP Associated Information Services. “It`s like somebody has a vendetta against us and is trying to put us out of business. There are times when our clients can`t connect at all. Their e-mail is delayed. It affects everything we do.”
“Millions of unsolicited commercial e-mails, which contain advertisements for legitimate products as well as pornography, dubious products, or get-rich-quick schemes, clog up individuals’ computer systems and the entire information superhighway. The problem with spam is that the receiver pays for e-mail advertisements. Junk e-mail is like “postage due” marketing or telemarketers calling collect. Spam costs consumers and ISPs money and time,” Wilson said.
Specifically, Congresswoman Wilson’s bill would:
* Require accurate return addresses on unsolicited commercial email;
* Make it illegal to continue spamming someone after they have requested to be removed from a distribution list;
* Require unsolicited commercial e-mail to be labeled;
* Require ISPs to let their customers opt out of getting junk e-mail if the ISP profits from allowing it into their system;
* Set a penalty for continuing to send junk e-mail after someone has asked for it to stop;
* Allow ISPs to have a junk e-mail policy and sue spammers for $500 per message if they violate the policy; and
* Authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to go after junk e-mailers who violate this law.
# # # |
|
|
|