Senate approves federal anti-spam law

It is the work of US Senators Conrad Burns and Ron Wyden who have spent three years on legislation to curb unsolicited commercial e-mail which, depending on whose estimates you believe, accounts for almost or more than half of all e-mail traffic on the internet.

"Today, the Senate has sent the message that the Government is going on the offensive against kingpin spammers," said Wyden. "Americans are tired of just watching and fretting over in-boxes clogged with offensive e-mail, and this legislation is an important step toward giving consumers more control."

Worldwide, according to the Senators, more than 13 billion spam e-mail messages are sent each day. Costs in the US alone have been estimated at $10 billion per year, say Burns and Wyden, due to expenses for anti-spam equipment and manpower and lost productivity.

Their bill targets deceptive messages sent by many large-volume spammers, who often hide their identities, use misleading subject lines, and refuse to honour opt-out requests from spam recipients.

Civil provisions of the bill include the following:

• a requirement that senders of marketing e-mail to include a return address so the consumer can tell them to stop;
• a requirement that unsolicited messages include clear notification that the message is an advertisement, and a valid physical postal address;
• a prohibition on false and deceptive headers and subject lines so that consumers can immediately identify the true source of the message, and so that internet companies can identify the high-volume senders of spam;
• a provision to triple the monetary damages imposed on spammers who engage in nefarious techniques such as using automatic software programs to harvest e-mail addresses from web sites, and using dictionary attack software to send messages to a succession of randomly generated e-mail addresses in search of real recipients; and
• strong, multi-pronged enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and ISPs, with the potential for multi-million dollars judgments.

Additional criminal provisions by amendment on the Senate floor. These create tiers of penalties, ranging up to five years in prison, for common spamming practices, including:

• hacking into somebody else's computer to send bulk spam;
• using open relays to send bulk spam with an intent to deceive;
• falsifying header information in bulk spam;
• registering for five or more e-mail accounts using false registration information, and using these accounts to send bulk spam; and
• sending bulk spam from somebody else's Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

The legislation also requires the Federal Trade Commission to report to Congress with a plan to implement a do-not-spam list, similar to the do-not-call list for which millions of Americans have already registered.

Other amendments include provisions to require the FTC to write rules for mandatory labelling of pornographic messages; a separate provision directs the FTC to consider mandatory labelling for unsolicited e-mail generally, as well as possible financial rewards for tech-savvy citizens who help trace hard-to-find spammers.

A number of anti-spam bills are currently moving through the House of Representatives. Wyden and Burns hope to work with their anti-spam counterparts in the House to send final legislation to the President's desk this year.