Rep. W.J. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) introduced his long-promised anti-spam bill just before Congress adjourned for the Memorial Day recess.
The Rid Spam Act prohibits the sending of fraudulent spam and gives consumers the chance to opt out, according to a statement from Tauzin’s office.
“The time has come to give the American people the power to say no,” said Tauzin, who is chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. “No to unwanted spam and no to the endless headaches involved with the crippling congestion spam causes to computers every day.”
The bill also requires any commercial e-mail to include an indication that it is an advertisement and a valid return address of the sender for service of process.
The legislation would gives states, Internet service providers and federal agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, criminal and civil remedies to enforce state computer fraud laws and general fraud laws against spammers.
Rid Spam would protect against fraudulent practices by making it unlawful to falsify header information or collect addresses from a Web site and then send spam to these unsuspecting e-mail addresses, the statement said.
The Direct Marketing Association put out a statement Friday afternoon “commending” Tauzin on the introduction of the bill.
“Having a House measure co-sponsored by the Chairmen of two such powerful Congressional committees…provides our greatest opportunity to date to ensure that federal legislation in, in fact, enacted,” said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the DMA.
Tauzin’s co-sponsors on the bill are Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC), vice chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).
A Senate bill, the CAN-Spam Act, was introduced in April. The sponsors of that bill, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Ron Wyden (R-OR) heard testimony on spam this week before the Senate Commerce Committee.
Other bills recently introduced include a one by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) that would give citizens a bounty to hunt down spammers, and another by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) that would allow U.S. prosecutors to hit spammers with RICO counts.
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