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| Wilson’s Junk E-Mail Bill Approved Overwhelmingly by the House |
July 18, 2000 |
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| Washington, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act, H.R. 3113, was passed overwhelmingly by the US House of Representatives. The lopsided vote, 427 to 1, was the culmination of more than a year of hard work and coalition building by Wilson after bills addressing the subject became bogged down at the end of the 105th congress.
“We are one big step closer to providing consumers with the ability to free themselves from the annoying and sometimes offensive flood of junk email clogging their computers,” said Wilson. “The growth of the Internet has been one of the most important developments of the second half of the 20th century. The Internet is 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 over one third of junk e-mail is pornographic. This bill will allow parents and consumers the power to say enough is enough and close their inbox to annoying and obscene junk email.”
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. America OnLine estimates that 30% their e-mail traffic is junk email. For ISPs like highway.net and Associated Information Services in Albuquerque, NM, 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 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 $1 billion a year,” Wilson said.
Specifically, Congresswoman Wilson’s bill would:
* Require accurate return addresses on unsolicited commercial email;
* Make it illegal to continue sending junk email to someone after they have asked 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;
* Authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to go after junk e-mailers who violate this law; and
* Creates a misdemeanor offense in criminal law for intentionally using fraudulent return addresses or routing information, including any domain name, header information, date or time stamp, originating electronic mail address, or other information identifying the initiator or the routing of such message, that is contained in or accompanies such message.
Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) introduced a similar version of Wilson’s bill in the Senate earlier this year and that bill is currently awaiting action in the Senate Commerce Committee.
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