President Bush signed the Can Spam Act of 2003 into law in the Oval Office Tuesday morning. The law establishes the first national standards for commercial e-mail.
“Today’s signing of the Can Spam Act is the culmination of over four years of work on this legislation,” said Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) in a statement. Burns sponsored the legislation with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). “I am glad that today marks a day where Americans will begin to have some muscle against the spammers out there who flood the inboxes each day.”
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 delivers harsh penalties for sending spam, with the potential for multi-million dollar judgments. Additional criminal provisions in the bill create several tiers of penalties, ranging up to five years in prison for several common spamming practices.
The Federal Trade commission, state attorneys general and Internet service providers will enforce the law.
The bill requires that each commercial e-mail contain an opt-out mechanism, and that the sender include its physical address. It also prohibits false and deceptive headers and subject lines.
The Direct Marketing Association, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers issued a statement supporting the law, but maintaining their opposition to the provision calling for the FTC to study the efficacy of a do-not-spam law similar to the do-not-call list.
The trade groups also oppose a provision requiring the FTC to study labeling of all unsolicited e-mail generally.
“Such approaches,” they said, “Will do nothing to stem the tide of spam caused by fringe operators who for the most part already break existing laws, yet it will impede the use of legitimate e-mail communications.”
The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2004, supercedes state anti-spam laws now in force.
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