The "You CAN SPAM Act" Legal Links and Information Page

John Mozena, co-founder of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), comments on The "Can-Spam" Act: "It fails the most basic test of antispam legislation. It doesn't tell anybody not to spam."          New Law Won't Can Spam, Critics Say          Do We Need a Stronger Federal Law to Curb Junk E-Mail?

Doug Isenberg's GigaLaw.com®: "Legal Information for Internet Professionals"     Archive of links to informatin on the CAN-SPAM law.          GigaLaw.com's CAN-SPAM Library

FBI Launches SLAM-spam.     Required reading for all spammers. FBI launches operations to slam spam.     The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), working in coordination with industry, developed "SLAM-Spam," an initiative that began operation last fall. This initiative targets significant criminal spammers, as well as companies and individuals that use spammers and their techniques to market their products. It also investigates the techniques and tools used by spammers to expand their targeted audience, to circumvent filters and other countermeasures implemented by consumers and industry, and to defraud customers with misrepresented or non-existent products.          FBI Web Site Press Release. May 20, 2004

spamlaws.com.     The enrolled (final) text of S. 877 as it was passed by the Senate on November 25, 2003, and agreed to by the House of Representatives on December 8, 2003, appears below (also available in PDF). The bill was signed by the President on December 16, 2003, and takes effect on January 1, 2004.          Spam Laws: United States: Federal Laws: CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

Web Marketing Today, Issue 131, December 3, 2003     Disclaimer: This article does not constitute legal advice. For your company's specific situation you need to consult your attorney. But in this article I lay out some general guidelines for understanding and conforming to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (that is, the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003," The law took effect January 1, 2004. You can find the text of the law linked to the SpamLaw.com website. http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html          How to Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

CAN-SPAM Act Dismissed as a Total Failure     Saskatoon StarPhoenix. April 10, 2004.     Faced with such a veritable onslaught, governments are beginning to respond. But in the United States, where it is needed the most, the federal Can-Spam Act, which became law on Jan. 1 has been dismissed as a "total failure."     Internet authority Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, said the act won't stem the tide of spam. The flaw with the legislation, say critics, is that the mail will not be deemed spam if it includes a link that allows recipients to opt-out or unsubscribe.     The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (CAUCE) was scathing in its criticism. "This law does not stop a single spam from being sent. It only makes that spam slightly more truthful," said chair Scott Hazen Mueller. "It also gives a federal stamp of approval for every legitimate marketer in the U.S. to start using unsolicited mail as a marketing tool."          Reclaim your e-mail

Spammers Could Face Stiff Sentencing Guidelines!     CNet news.com. April 12, 2004.     Spammers convicted under a recently enacted national antispam law could face stiff sentences under newly finalized government recommendations.     The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) said Tuesday that it sent Congress sentencing guidelines for the Can-Spam Act, short for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing.     Among the newly minted guidelines are added penalties for people convicted of sending spam using someone else's computer without permission or obscuring the message's real origin.     The commission retained in the final substantive draft a controversial proposal to compare spam offenses to theft, fraud and property destruction for the purposes of sentencing.          CNET News.com. Stiff spam penalties urged.

FTC Rulemaking Call for Comments Extended to April 20th.          On April 1, 2004 the Commission received a letter from Ronald L. Plesser of Piper Rudnick requesting, on behalf of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Direct Marketing Association, and the Magazine Publishers of America, that the Commission extend the comment period to April 20, 2004. In support of this request, the letter states that an extension of time would allow the requesting entities more time to contact their members to further evaluate the ANPR. The letter also explains that, in light of upcoming religious holidays, a short extension of time is needed for the requesting entities to adequately present their views.     In response to this request, the Commission has determined to extend the comment period on all topics set forth in the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, except the Do Not Email Registry report, until April 20, 2004.\8\      From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

April 9, 2004, Spam Becomes ILLEGAL in Australia     [Ed. Note: If you are a United States citizen, write your Senators and Representative about this law as soon as you can. Feel free to point out what an anti-spam law really should do, little things like MAKE SPAM EMAIL ILLEGAL!]     As of today, it becomes illegal to send spam from or to Australia. And Down Under, their definition of spam is a little tougher than U.S. laws have gotten us used to.     The Spam Act 0f 2003 covers all electronic communications, other than telemarketing or faxes. That means e-mails, mobile phone text messages (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS) and instant messaging (IM). Any unsolicited commercial message is now considered spam, unless the sender is accurately identified and the message has a functional unsubscribe address. Not only that, there is no definition in Australian law of "bulk" spam: sending even a single unwanted message is enough to run you afoul of the law.      Australian Spam Act Goes Into Effect. By David Fiedler, InternetWeek.

webpronews.com. April 5, 2004.     Is your organization in compliance with the recently passed CAN-SPAM anti-spam legislation? Because of the short-time frame between President Bush signing the legislation and the new law taking effect, many companies have either overlooked or misunderstood certain aspects of the law.     For example, in a mid-January analysis of more than 100 opt-in email messages from companies across multiple industries, our company discovered that 44 percent of the emails were not in compliance with one of the simplest requirements of the law. These emails did not include a postal mailing address somewhere in the body of the message.     The outcome of all of this activity was that customers awoke from a privacy and permission sleep in 2003. Whether you believe consumers are actually in significantly greater control over their personal information and marketing messages they receive is irrelevant. Consumers believe they are – and will punish those organizations that don’t understand and respect this reality.          CAN-SPAM And Beyond: Email Marketing In An Era Of Customer Control     [Ed. Note: You know, one could wax really sarcastic over the third paragraph from the article quoted above. How dare we uppity consumers even dream of waking up and trying to even imagine we had a single shred of privacy and protection for our personal data any more? After all, didn't Larry Ellison of Oracle pronounce that in this new age of technology "Privacy is dead. Get over it." Silly consumers. Note that although I have listed this article on the "Here they come" sleazers page, because of the marketdroid slant, it does cover provisions of the law, so I list it on this page, also.]

Can-spam law means just what it says     According to experts, spam accounts for about 70 percent of the e-mail traffic zipping through cyberspace. And dealing with it costs Americans between $9 billion and $12 billion every year.     The spam problem is getting so bad that it's driving people off the Internet. Seriously. The Pew Internet and American Life project surveyed Internet users between Feb. 3 and March 1 and found that 29 percent of those questioned have used their e-mail less often because of irritating spam.     The CAN-SPAM law, it turns out, is about as effective at stopping spam and spammers as its somewhat unfortunate acronym suggests, according to John Reid, one of a group of computer professionals across the globe who work on a volunteer anti-spam effort called The Spamhaus. In fact, Reid says, the anti-spam law could more accurately be called the You CAN Spam law because it lacks any real enforcement resources behind it.      Daily News.com. April 3, 2004.

Stopping Spam; Billable Units; Proposed National Defamation Laws     The Law Report. Radio National, Australia. March 23, 2004.          ... early next month, tough new Federal anti-spam legislation will ban Australian spammers from continuing their trade. And if they don’t, they could face penalties of up to $1.1-million a day.     The Australian spam legislation is going to have an effect on Australian spam, which is what it’s intended to do. It’s not likely to have a great effect on spam coming into Australia from outside the country, and nobody expects that it will. The purpose of putting this legislation in place is firstly to stop Australian spammers, and secondly to put the nation into a credible negotiation position when looking for other countries to adopt similar measures, because we’re able to say to those other countries, ‘Look, we’re not asking you to do something that we’re not willing to do ourselves, because we’ve already done it.’          Transcript and Audio of Broadcase on Stopping Spam