HR 3113

"CAUCE NEWS Volume 4, Number 1 July, 2000 In this issue:

* House passes anti-spam bill At about 3:45 PM on July 18th, the US House of Representatives passed HR 3113, the "the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000", introduced by Rep. Heather Wilson, Rep. Gary Miller, and Rep. Gene Green. The bill enjoyed an overwhelming margin of 427-1. This legislation was the product of extensive negotiations between consumer groups, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), e-commerce businesses, and responsible direct marketers. HR 3113 represents a carefully crafted approach that balances the needs of ISPs, consumers, and marketers. Its provisions include:

* Providers of Internet access service can set their own UCE policy (including "no UCE at all"),
and so long as it's properly published senders must obey it.

* ISPs and recipients of mail sent in
violation can sue for $500/spam, just like recipients of junk faxes.

* The FTC can cite and fine violators.

* CE (unsolicited or otherwise) must have a working return address to tell them to stop.

* Forged headers on CE are illegal.

* Senders of CE must stop when you tell them to. In a press release, Rep. Wilson said: "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."

The bill now goes to the Senate where it has to be reconciled with S.2542 and other anti-spam bills already introduced in the Senate. None of the Senate bills has all of the desirable features of HR 3113, so there remains plenty of work to do." CAUCE has a a full PDF version available here and Thomas.gov has updates.

About This Message: This message was written and broadcast by the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. It is copyrighted (c) 1999 by the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. We encourage redistribution of this message or items from it, as long as they are not spammed anywhere, are on-topic for any forum to which you send them, and include our copyright notice. When in doubt, post the URL of our site (http://www.cauce.org) instead, or put it in your signature. Press, broadcast, and Internet media may treat this material as they would a press release. For other commercial reproduction rights, contact John Levine johnl@cauce.org.