Senate Approves Anti-Spam Bill

from the good-or-bad? dept

As was rumored earlier today, the Senate gathered enough folks together this evening to push through an anti-spam bill, that (they say) takes the best of the six hundred or so anti-spam bills that have been introduced this year. The bill includes plans for an absolutely useless "do not spam" list, though, it hands off most of the details to the FTC who has already said that such a list would be useless. This law also, as was discussed earlier today, would overrule state anti-spam laws, such as the one scheduled to go into effect here in California. It bans falsifying return addresses while requiring a physical address (why?) be included in each email. Penalties for breaking the spam law include five years in jail, which seems a bit extreme. The bill is opt-out, meaning that marketers can keep spamming you and you'd have to opt-out each time (unless the "do not spam" list actually works). So, basically, this law won't do anything to actually stop spam, but will probably be a nuisance for people doing legitimate things with email. Of course, the House is still trying to figure out what do on their side of Congress, so there's still a chance this bill will change or not go anywhere.