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If
you are reading our Legal Tips column on the Internet,
odds are that you also use e-mail. If you use e-mail,
the odds are also incredibly high that you get tons
of junk e-mail on a regular basis. I was shocked to
recently come back from a two day absence to find 30
e-mails, 19 of which were solicitations or advertisements
of various types.
If
you have had a similar experience as me, and have made
the tips of your fingers raw typing "remove" from the
subject line of a responsive e-mail, you may have said
to yourself "there ought to be a law." Actually, there
may soon be a law.
Congress
currently has four bills pending that would attempt
to limit the spread of electronic junk mail and permit
consumers to have control over the sorts of solicitations
they would receive. HR1910, the E-Mail User Protection
Act; HR2162, the Canned Spam Act; HR3113, the Unsolicited
Electronic Mail Act of 1999; and S759 would all provide
mechanisms to limit electronic junk mail and avoid its
receipt.
The
general approach of most of these bills is the same.
Prohibitions would be created on false or misleading
headings or sources of electronic mail. The bills also
require that consumers be provided an option to avoid
receiving future solicitations and that those requests
be honored. HR3113 and S759 also would create universal
opt out lists that solicitors would have to honor. The
bills also provide civil, and in some cases criminal,
penalties.
If
you are interested in learning more about any of these
bills or perhaps contacting your Congressional delegation
about them, there are several websites you can consult:
If
one or more of these bills become law, perhaps all of
us will have somewhat less cluttered computer desktops.
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