Collins Seeks Industry Input on Sweepstakes Restriction Bill
Three weeks after a Senate investigations subcommittee hearing on the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act, which would impose national standards for direct mail sweepstakes promotions, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-ME), revealed that she is planning to revise the measure. She’s seeking additional industry comments on how to make the legislation more acceptable.
At that hearing, representatives of the major sweepstakes operators and the Direct Marketing Association agreed on the need for some form of federal regulation but suggested it be less restrictive than proposed.
Immediately afterward an intensive lobbying effort to get Collins to modify her legislation began with the hiring of the Duberstein Group by the DMA; Timmons and Co. by Publishers Clearing House and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld by American Family Enterprises.
Collins would not say if her decision to modify the bill was influenced by the industry’s lobbying effort. And she would not indicate what changes she might make to the bill.
Although the DMA will file written comments with Collins, spokesman Chet Dalzell said it was “too early to say if they would contain any specific recommendations.”
Publishers Clearing House, American Family Enterprises, Time Warner and the Reader’s Digest Association, which defended their sweepstakes practices before the subcommittee, are also expected to make a number of recommendations, as are a number of state attorneys general and consumer advocate groups.
Collins’ bill in its current form would require sweepstakes operators to clearly disclose in their mailings that no purchase is necessary to win while prohibiting companies from using mailings that mimic official government documents or telling recipients that they won something when they haven’t.
Violators would face fines ranging from $50,000 to $2 million, depending on the size of the mailing.
