A California anti-spam bill that would require consumers to opt in to receive commercial e-mail is going to be voted on by a state Senate committee on Monday.
The bill, SB 12, introduced by State Sen. Debra Bowen in December, would ban e-mail advertising unless the recipient has agreed to receive the e-mail or there is an existing business relationship between the sender and recipient. The law would apply to any business in the state or outside it that sends commercial e-mail to Californians.
"Spammers shouldn’t be allowed to force people who are at work, trying to earn a living, to wade through ads for Internet porn, dream vacation packages and the latest pyramid scheme on a daily basis," said Bowen, in a statement.
The bill would allow individuals to sue alleged spammers in state court for $500 per e-mail. A judge can triple the fine if he or she finds the sender willfully and knowingly violated the California ban. And, courts would be required to impose an additional $250 civil penalty per spam to be used to fund high-tech crime task forces throughout the state.
Under the existing anti-spam statute in California, only a city attorney, district attorney the state attorney general, or an Internet service provider have a right to sue spammers.
The existing law also requires that a marketer provide an opt-out provision—an e-mail address or some other way for people to remove themselves from the marketer’s list. The law also requires marketers to identify advertising e-mail as such by placing "ADV" in the subject line.
This bill goes much farther than that.
"I think this is the toughest bill to be proposed across the nation," said Quinn Jalli, manager of strategic relations at e-mail services provider Mindshare Design, San Francisco. "California is the first state to be a proponent of the opt-in standard.
"Opt-out mail is to a large degree, spam," Jalli said. "Opt-in e-mail is what we want."
Jalli said he met last week with an aide to Sen. Bowen in his role as a member of the Network Advertisers Initiative, a coalition of e-mail service providers. The NAI wants to insert language in the bill that "acknowledges there are companies that are committed to being responsible e-mail senders, and if they can demonstrate that, then they should get protection under the law," Jalli said.
If SB 12 passes the state Senate Business and Professions Committee, it will go to a Senate fiscal committee, then to the state Assembly. It is expected to move through the legislature and be ready for signature by the governor by September, according to a source in Sen. Bowen’s office.
