Sen. Burns eager to deliver e-mail spam legislation

Persistent efforts by U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., to pass legislation clamping down on junk e-mail may finally be finding a receptive audience.

By TED MONOSON of the Missoulian D.C. Bureau

With e-mail inboxes across the country regularly being flooded with spam, unsolicited e-mails offering everything from pornography to low-interest loans to Viagra, lawmakers in Washington are being besieged with pleas from fed-up constituents to do something.

It is hardly a new problem. Burns and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have been trying to pass legislation for several years that would require marketers to provide a working return address and give recipients the opportunity to opt out of receiving messages.

"We’ve just now gotten critical mass," Burns said. "Everybody is saying ‘What’s all this trash?’ It’s just grown in numbers to the point where it has attracted the attention of more people."

Furthermore, companies that in the past have urged Congress to keep its mitts off of the Internet are now asking for help.

"They were cool to the idea of government intervention, but they’ve realized we need a law to bring the industry together to solve this problem," Burns said.

Both AOL Time Warner and Microsoft have said they support legislation to stop spam, and the Direct Marketing Association has said that it would support legislation that focuses on punishing fraudulent e-mails. Officials with AOL have estimated that the company blocks 2 billion spam messages every day, which is about two-thirds of the total e-mails coming into its servers.

"It is a major source of consumer annoyance – there is an outcry – and companies are upset because it is using up a lot of bandwidth," said Mark Uncapher, a senior vice president for the Information Technology Association of America.

Because of First Amendment protections and technological limitations, Burns and other lawmakers cannot simply prohibit unsolicited e-mail. Under Burns and Wyden’s bill, people who continue to send unsolicited messages after an e-mail account holder has asked to be removed from a list could face fines of up to $500,000.

Burns and other legislators have rejected calls by some consumer groups to permit people to sue spammers.

A federal law likely would supersede the anti-spam laws already in place in 27 states.

This year, Virginia amended its anti-spam law to permit the incarceration of those who send unsolicited e-mails.

Uncapher said that the proliferation of state laws has increased pressure on Congress to act and provide uniform regulations for the entire country.

"If you have 50 laws it will really gum up the Internet without solving the problem," Uncapher said.

According to Uncapher, legislation also has been stymied by disagreement among members of the House of Representatives about what a bill should include. One group of House members wanted to focus on misleading headers while another group wanted much more comprehensive legislation. In the face of constituent complaints, House members have started to put their differences aside.

"I suspect a final bill will come to look like what Burns and Wyden have agreed to," Uncapher said. "They have kind of found the common ground." Although Uncapher is optimistic about the prospects for a bill, he is unsure whether it will be effective.

"I want to be real careful not to oversell anything," Uncapher said. "Spammers could simply go overseas. I expect that it is going to be an international issue that the Federal Trade Commission will have to get involved in."

http://missoulian.com/articles/2003/05/15/news/mtregional/news06.txt