Comments:

The implementation of a National Do Not Email Registry would just prove that our lawmakers are out of touch with reality. Unlike the Spammer' s telemarketing cousins, the sources of these UCE's are rarely, if ever, traceable because they "float" constantly, are often international, are protected by hosts who make an obscene amount of money hosting & hiding them; utilize latest technologies as well as the usual phoney headers. These individuals & outfits are primarily criminals, outlaws, thieves & scam artists who are not at all above breaking laws for profit; They are drooling at the thought of a government agency handing them a monstrous list of VALID, VERIFIABLE ADDRESSES which saves them time & money and has the benefit of being several times more valuable on the Spammer list market than current harvested lists because it will be 100% varifiable. The effectiveness and enforcement of the CAN-SPAM Act: First & formost, no law will EVER be of value in halting Spam unless & until the MAJOR hosts (ie xo, verio, uu.net, etc) of the sources are held accountable. Many of them have security issues which allow them to be abused, but many more are looking the other way because of the amount of money the Spammers are willinh to pay. Secondly the requirement to allow "opt-out", as anyone who has ever done so, knows, is a joke! 99.9% of the time it just brings 10 fold more Spam, because you are now verified as existing and have been harvested. Another neat Spammer trick is to now use your harvested address in further Spams which can cause insurmountable damage. I have witnessed this on several occasions. This leads to: thirdly, there is no provision to prevent the mass falsification of header information, allowing countless schemes. Yet when attempting to submit an abuse issue with most hosts, the submitter is not allowed to hide their identity, else be rejected. In most cases they hand the abuse submission directly to the Spammer, who now can verify you exist! Additional comments for above questions: With respect to "the primary purpose": Please be reminded that the primary purpose of many of these emails is masked by a phoney offer or non-existant web link. With respect to "10-business-day time period": this just makes it legal for them to "mail-bomb" your address for 2 weeks after your supposed "opt-out"! Please see, also, above comments concerning the "opt-out" scam I apoligize if I offend anyone, but I just see these enactments as legitimizing Spam & Spammers. With respect to "Information in a message's "from" line": The from line is typically forged by the Spammer (often with the recipient's own name or address); therefore measures need to be taken to eliminate this ability G. REGULATORY FLEXIBILITY COMMENTS. Be advised that less than .5% of my Spam is from legitimate marketers (and I don't report them as Spam). Unfortunately, the negative impact on small business (especially home-based as mine) has already been devistating as a result of the unscroupulous marketers & advertisers. Most legitimate mail gets deleted along with the mountains of Spam because businesses just can't afford the time to sort thru and discern what is legitimate and what is not, as well as affording to take the risk of an unknown virus by opening a legitimate-looking message. This is now a fact of life and any legislation short of treating known Spammers & their knowing hosts as criminals, is a day late & a dollar short, as the damage is already done. Thank you for providing this opportunity to voice my opinion.