The Federal Trade Commission isn't the only group that thinks Senators should put spam-fghting "silver bullets" out of their minds. The Electronic Privacy Information Center told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee May 20 that a multi-tiered approach to the problem is needed and that current legislation, particularly the Burns-Wyden bill now under Senate consideration, just isn't enough to solve it.
"A multi-tiered approach that includes aggressive enforcement, better technology for identifying and filtering spam, and cooperation at the state and international level will all be necessary," testified EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg. "In addition, baseline federal legislation that gives users the opportunity to go after spammers and ensures that marketing lists are built on explicit consent and not on deception is a critical part of the effort to stem the tide of undesired commercial e-mail."
The Burns-Wyden bill, known also as the "Can Spam Act," would require unsolicited email to bear a valid return e-mail address and working opt-out features. It also would require marketers to stop sending messages to recipients who opt out. In addition, the bill would let Internet service providers take court action against spammers and allow the FTC to slap fines on those who violate any provision in the law.
So far, so good, Rotenberg told the Senate committee, but he emphasized that Burns-Wyden is only a starting point.
"As the Burns-Wyden measure currently stands, it is simply not a sufficient solution," Rotenberg testified. "It gives the FTC a great deal of authority and the ISPs many opportunities to bring complaints. However, for the state attorneys who are already on the front lines and for the users who are also saddled with the costs and burden of spam there is not enough in the bill currently to reform egregious online practices or assure that spammers will be pursued."
Rotenberg called for three changes to strengthen the bill: a full opt-in regime for spam "except in those cases where a prior business relationship exists," bringing in "a private right of action" that would let individuals take spammers to small-claims court, and adjusting the bill so that it doesn't pre-empt state anti-spam laws.
"While it is clear that some revisions have been made to the Can Spam Act to take account of the important efforts of states to combat spam, the bill still unduly restricts state legislatures that have been on the front lines of the problem," he testified. "Even with the FTC's important enforcement efforts, there is a real risk that a 'one size fits all' approach will not be effective and will undermine the basic structure of federalism in the United States that allows the states to pursue different approaches to common problems."
Rotenberg and his group are far from the only ones to raise those issues. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) led a group of eight organizations in urging passage of spam-fighting legislation that would let individuals take spammers to court. The group also objects to the Burns-Wyden Bill's lack of opt-in and private rights-of-action allowances.
"Because spammers impose costs on recipients, the correct policy is to prohibit it, just as Congress prohibited junk faxes in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA)," the CAUCE-led group noted in an April 30 letter. The group called for enabling network owners to post electronic "no spamming" signs, as was included in a spam-fighting bill that passed the House recently. They also said that leaving rights of action to ISPs alone "would leave far too many spammers breaking the law."
Sen. Charles Schumer [D-NY], a member of the Senate committee, commented at the May 20 hearing that ISPs spend millions of dollars a year just fighting spam, including research, filters, and new servers. "And if the spam itself isnt enough, spammers often engage in crimes such as identity theft and fraud to secure email addresses and domain names from which to send millions of pieces of junk email," Schumer said. "All of this demonstrates that its time to take back the Internet from the spammers."
Spam's exponential growth was attacked by another speaker at the Senate committee hearing, America Online Vice President Ted Leonisis, who said exponential growth in unsolicited email has wrought havoc in recent months and AOL email users are finding spam taking up 60-80 percent of their incoming email.
"[We] estimate that the overall volume of spam is doubling at least every four to six months," Leonisis testified. "Spam is costing U.S. businesses in excess of $10 billion annually, clogging the Internet and overwhelming email service providers. For everyone in the online world, spam is a burden that has reached crisis proportions and its only getting worse."
