Add Wisconsin to the growing list of states considering legislation that threatens to wipe legal, adult-oriented commercial content out of e-mail.
Wisconsin lawmakers are considering a bill that would set up a so-called child-protection do-not e-mail registry similar to those in use in Utah and Michigan.
Wisconsin is one of five states known to be considering children’s do-not e-mail registries. The other four are Connecticut, Hawaii, Georgia and Iowa.
In a bizarre twist, Hawaii recently passed its bill out of committee, but set it to go into effect in 2050.
Putting outlandish effective dates on legislation is apparently a common procedural tactic Hawaiian state legislators use to get flawed bills out of the way without having to spend time on them. It is unclear whether this means Hawaiian lawmakers intend to kill the state’s child no e-mail bill. Calls to Hawaii’s legislature were not returned.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s bill would require the state’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to set up a “family and school communications protection registry” that would allow parents and guardians to declare children’s e-mail addresses and other “contact points” as off limits to messages containing material that is obscene or sexually explicit.
Wisconsin’s bill differs from the other states’ child no-email bills in that it deals only with sexual content. The other four state’s bills—as is the case with laws in Michigan and Utah—restrict all content or links to content that is illegal for minors to view or buy, such as messages with content pertaining to alcohol and gambling.
Under Wisconsin’s bill, marketers who wish to send e-mail including sexually explicit content would be required to scrub their list against the state’s registry once per month and pay up to $5 per thousand addresses checked.
Since e-mail addresses don’t generally have geographical information attached to them, e-mailers who want to send messages inappropriate for minors would have to scrub their lists against each state registry each month in order to be sure to comply with the various laws.
Wisconsin’s bill would also allow school administrators to register entire domains.
Violations of Wisconsin’s bill would be a felony. Violators would be subject to fines of up to $3,000 per message up to $100,000 per day, and could be forced to forfeit any property used to send the illegal e-mail. Wisconsin’s bill would also give individuals the right to sue.
Wisconsin’s bill also would not allow marketers to defend themselves by saying the minor who received the message opted in.
Other details concerning Wisconsin’s bill were unavailable at deadline.
