Illinois state Rep. Jack Franks decided at the last minute to shelve a bill that would have established a so-called child-protection do-not e-mail registry in that state.
After an estimated 50 or 60 calls to his office and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Franks became convinced his bill was flawed enough that it shouldn't be introduced this legislative session as originally planned.
"I thought about it all weekend … and I think the bill is fatally flawed how it's drafted so I'm going to file a motion today to table it," said Franks. "I'll study it again. I don't know if I'll reintroduce it. I'm not sure how we can make this work. We all have the same goal, and that's to protect our children, but we have to do it in such a way that's not going to endanger them."
Franks, a Democrat, also said he is open to new ideas on how to protect children from inappropriate e-mail.
"Maybe we should get these folks together… to figure out ways to protect our kids while protecting marketers' rights and our civil liberties," he said. Franks said that calls from the E-mail Sender and Provider Coalition's executive director, Trevor Hughes, and calls from e-mail marketers convinced him to shelve the bill. "They made good points," he said. "I'm not trying to put anybody out of business."
Franks was expected to introduce a revamped child-protection do-not-e-mail bill last week after a similar one failed last year.
The news is a victory for e-mail marketers who are aiming to stop the spread of state so-called child-protection do-not-e-mail bills and who hope a pornography trade group prevails in its court battle against a do-not e-mail registry established in Utah.
Hughes was not immediately reachable for comment.
Franks' bill was modeled after laws enacted in Utah and Michigan over the summer. Those laws established registries allowing parents and guardians to list minors' e-mail addresses and other "contact points" as off limits to e-mail content and links to content illegal for minors to view or buy.
Marketers of adult-oriented material, such as gambling services and firearms, are supposed to scrub their e-mail lists against these registries for $5 per thousand names screened in Utah and $7 per thousand names in Michigan.
Marketers fear that as these registries spread to other states, e-mail containing content inappropriate for children will be too expensive to send legally.
Online pornography group the Free Speech Coalition sued Utah in November claiming that state's registry law is overridden by the federal Can-Spam Act of 2003 and that it unconstitutionally interferes with interstate commerce.
In a show of support, the E-mail Sender and Provider Coalition, three other marketing and advertising trade groups and two Internet advocacy groups filed an amicus brief backing the Free Speech Coalition last week.
Amicus briefs are filings by groups or individuals who are not a part of a lawsuit, but who believe its outcome will affect them.
The effort's other backers include the American Advertising Federation, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Two national marketing associations absent from the effort were the Direct Marketing Association and the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Hughes said last week that he is also talking to some child advocacy organizations to get them to file amicus briefs against Utah's registry, as well.
He added that the unusual assortment of organizations backing the amicus brief against Utah's registry -- along with multiple opinions issued against do-not-email registries by the Federal Trade Commission -- underscores how broad the opposition is against them.
Meanwhile, a child-protection do-not-e-mail bill was introduced in Georgia earlier this month that would charge marketers are much as $10 per thousand addresses checked.
A hearing concerning the bill -- dubbed "The Georgia Child, Family, and School Communications Protection Act" -- was scheduled to take place in Georgia's state Senate yesterday.
