The US House of Representatives has approved an amended
version of a bill that will allow penalties of up to $6m and five
years in jail for sending some e-mail spam, the last step before
the bill can be signed into law by President George W
Bush.
Senate sources have said they expect the bill to be signed into
law by the president by the end of the year.
About 13 billion pieces of unsolicited commercial e-mail are
sent each day, which represents about half of all e-mail sent.
Critics have said the Can-Spam bill will allow "legal" spam to
continue because it requires that e-mail users opt out of receiving
commercial e-mail, instead of requiring that spammers receive
opt-in permission before sending e-mail. Some critics have also
decried the bill authors' decision not to allow individual e-mail
users to sue spammers.
Can-Spam allows internet service providers to sue spammers and
state attorneys general to sue on behalf of users. This version
also includes a provision requiring the US Federal Trade Commission
to come back to Congress within six months with recommendations on
how to set up a national do-not-spam list, similar to the national
do-not-call telemarketing list now in effect in the US.
The bill includes a criminal penalty of up to a year in jail for
sending commercial e-mail with false or misleading header
information, plus criminal penalties, ranging up to five years in
prison, for some common spamming practices, including hacking into
someone else's computer to send spam, using open relays to send
spam intended to deceive and registering five or more e-mail
accounts using false information and using those accounts to send
bulk spam.
A House version of the bill increased penalties from the
original Senate version passed in October, with up to $250 per spam
e-mail with a cap of $2m that can be tripled to $6m for aggravated
violations. The first Senate version allowed fines of up to $100
per piece of spam sent with misleading header information, with a
maximum fine of $3m for aggravated cases.
The House bill also applies its requirements on all pieces of
commercial e-mail, not just unsolicited commercial e-mail, as
required in the Senate bill. Requirements on commercial e-mail
include a valid reply-to address, a valid postal address and
accurate headers and subject lines.
Grant Gross writes for IDG News Service