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| Scrapping Junk E-Mail |
July 18, 2000 |
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| Dear Friends,
Shortly after I was elected to Congress I got an e-mail with a subject line that said, "What the Federal Government Doesn`t Want You to Know". Thinking that this was from a friend or neighbor letting me know about some mismanaged federal program, I clicked on the link and found myself in a pornographic web site. I got quite a few more over next few months and started asking friends and New Mexico`s internet service providers whether this was unusual.
It`s not.
Some estimates are that 90% of Americans who use e-mail get at least one junk e-mail a week on average. About one third are pornographic. Another third are for get rich quick schemes. America On-Line estimates that nearly 30% of the traffic on its system is junk e-mail.
The problem is that, as a consumer, you have no rights to stop it. The return address on the e-mail is more than likely fake and if you do say, "Stop sending me this stuff!!" unscrupulous marketers just confirm that they have a real live address, which allows them to sell your e-mail address to someone else at a premium.
As a parent, that really bothered me. My kids are still too young to use e-mail on their own, but they won`t be for long. And there are just some things I don`t want them to have to see.
But it`s not just a problem for our in-boxes. Steven Fox, CEO of Associated Information Services, an internet service provider in Albuquerque almost had his company collapse because of a "spam attack" that caused his computers to go down and his customers to not be able to get their real e-mail. John Brown of I-highway.net in Albuquerque and Hank LeMieux and Marianne Granoff of the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association were telling me the same thing. Unlike regular advertising, it`s as cheap for a junk e-mailer to send 1 million messages as it is to send 1 message. The cost is shifted to the consumer and the internet service provider. It`s like telemarketers calling collect or getting a bill at the end of the month for all of the junk mail in your snail mail box.
There had been some anti-spam bills introduced in the last Congress, but they got mired in controversy over regulating the internet and protecting the right of free speech. But I thought there could be a way to thread this needle and get a bill that gives consumers some rights without stiffling electronic commerce.
People and companies have a right of free speech on the electronic town square. But they don`t have a right to force me to listen or to force another company to pay for it.
So, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we came up with the "Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act". After a year of work (There ain`t no such thing as easy in this town!) we got it to the floor today and it passed, 427 to 1.
I hope it makes your on-line experience a little more efficient and less annoying.
Wish you were here,
Heather
p.s. The Baca bill passed -- as you probably know by now. We went up there on Saturday as guests of the Dunnigan family to see it and took the kids. The elk came out at dusk and were whistling. It was beautiful. You`ll love it.
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