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Date: 1998-06-18

Anti/SPAM: Neue Initiative im U.S. Senat


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q/depesche 98.6.18.1

Anti/SPAM: Neue Initiative im U.S. Senat

Senator Burns, ansonsten sehr konservativ, ist seit dem Communications Decency Act mehrmals als
einer, der sich in net related affairs auskennt, aufgefallen.



WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1998 JUN 17 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha,
Newsbytes. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) ripped into junk e-mail, also
known as spam, on Wednesday. He called the act of spamming "a threat to
computer networks across the nation."

"Spamming is truly the scourge of the Information Age," Burns, chairman
of the communications subcommittee of the Senate's Commerce, Science
and Transportation Committee said at a hearing today.

The hearing, Burns said, was called to "explore legislation to deal
with the problem."

"The Internet has provided tremendous commercial and educational
opportunities to people across the globe," Burns said. "Unfortunately,
however, the revolution on communications technology has also allowed
for unscrupulous actors to intrude on the privacy of Americans with the
digital equivalent of junk mail."

Spamming is "especially troublesome" to consumers in rural areas, such
as Burns' home state of Montana. Burns' constituents and other rural
residents "must pay long distance charges to receive these unwanted
solicitations, many of which contain fraudulent messages," he said.

Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), concurred with Burns. "Junk e-mail is
a particular burden to our rural constituents in Alaska and Montana who
must pay a long distance charge to access the Internet," he told the
hearing.

Earlier this year, Murkowski and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.)
included a spam provision in S. 1618, the Telephone Anti-Slamming Act,
which passed the Senate last month on a 99-0 vote. That provision would
require honest identification of junk e-mailers and that consumer
remove request that must be honored.

"Our measure would weed out the bad actors of the Internet by
requiring identification of online marketers, as well as requiring
that `remove' requests are honored," Murkowski said.

Responding to calls for an outright ban on junk e-mail however,
Murkowski said that "such a ban would establish a dangerous precedent
and would erode the protections of the First Amendment."

"The government simply should not dictate what a consumer sees in his
or her mailbox," he said.

"We have been down this road before with the Communications Decency
Act," Murkowski said. "The Supreme Court by a unanimous vote has made
very clear what it thinks of such sweeping bans of Internet material.
Consumers should have the final word in deciding what comes into their
mailboxes, not the government."

Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs for the
Direct Marketing Association (DMA), agreed with Murkowski's stance
against an outright junk e-mail ban. "Electronic commerce, of which e-
mail is a part, is new," Cerasale told the hearing. "The government, no
matter how good its intentions, should not strangle electronic commerce
at birth."

Cerasale said the DMA envisions a two-pronged "opt-out" program, where
the recipient of an unsolicited bulk e-mail should be able to request
that the marketer not send any more e-mails simply by hitting the reply
key.

The second prong of DMA's approach, he said, is to create an "e-mail
preference service" which would allow consumers to add their e-mail
addresses, online, to a list at no charge. Marketers then would use
this list to delete the addresses from their e-mail file.

"Prohibition of e-mail will not allow the growth" of the Internet,
Cerasale said. "The DMA believes the government should enhance its
efforts to combat fraud on the Internet and, specifically, in e-mail."

But other groups are looking at other junk e-mail legislation working
its way through Congress.

Rachel Luxemburg, owner of America Communications in New York, and a
member of the Internet Service Providers' Consortium (ISP/C), said the
ISP/C supports Rep. Christopher Smith's (R-N.J.) Netizens Protection
Act of 1997, H.R. 1748, which places the burden of the delivery cost of
e-mail advertising on the advertiser, by ensuring that consumers will
only get advertising which they actually want and agree to receive.

The spam ban would include all unsolicited commercial e-mail, including
get-rich-quick schemes, electronic dating services, offers of unproved
medical remedies and other solicitations that ultimately cost consumers
in online charges, unlike regular junk mail.

The bill, Smith said, "will help people not only with the nuisance of
spam but the costs as well."

Smith added that anyone wanted to continue to receive spam mail could
do so under the Netizens Protection Act.

Relaed by Newsbytes News Network: <A HREF="http://www.newsbytes.com"



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Download free PGP 5.5.3i (Win95/NT & Mac) from Arge Daten
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edited by Harkank
published on: 1998-06-18
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