Congresswoman Heather Wilson, First Congressional District of New Mexico

"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 commercial or pandering e-mail on our computers or on the computers of our children. The bill also provides relief for Internet Service Providers (ISP) who now bear the cost of unwanted spam as advertising costs are shifted from the advertiser to the service provider."

• Commercial pandering e-mail must have valid return addresses and requests to be removed from the distribution list must be respected. If there is subsequent e-mail from the same sender, the individual may sue the sender in a local court or ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate and enforce the matter.
• An Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be able to prohibit the transmission of unsolicited e-mail to its subscribers without compensation. The Wilson bill creates authority for an ISP to enforce its privacy policy in a local court, or to appeal to the FCC to enforce the matter.
• Sending large quantities of unsolicited e-mail costs the sender very little money. In fact, sending one e-mail costs almost the same as one million e-mails. However, the ISP -- be it America Online or mom&pop.com; -- who receive one million e-mails must pay for the traffic on their leased line, the storage in the memory, and the per-minute charges for downloading the e-mail. This cost shift should not be forced onto an ISP.
• The Wilson bill creates a national e-mail opt-out list, similar to the Post Office’s direct mail opt-out list, so that consumers can decline any commercial or pandering e-mail.

"This bill gives more power to parents to protect their children from exposure to pornographic web sites," Wilson added. Unsolicited e-mail with seemingly benign subject lines is a common tactic used by pornographic marketers. Parents should have the ability to stop it."