[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5769 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5769

  To direct the Federal Trade Commission to revise the Telemarketing 
    Sales Rule to explicitly prohibit the sending of a text message 
containing an unsolicited advertisement to a cellular telephone number 
              listed on the national do-not-call registry.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 10, 2008

 Mr. Gingrey (for himself, Mr. Aderholt, Mr. Akin, Mrs. Bachmann, Mr. 
   Bartlett of Maryland, Mr. Bilirakis, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Broun of 
Georgia, Mr. Campbell of California, Mr. Conaway, Mr. Deal of Georgia, 
  Mrs. Drake, Mr. Feeney, Mr. Fortenberry, Ms. Foxx, Mr. Gohmert, Mr. 
Goode, Mr. Hall of Texas, Mr. King of Iowa, Mr. Kingston, Mr. Lewis of 
Kentucky, Mr. Linder, Mr. McCotter, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Mr. Pitts, 
    Mr. Price of Georgia, Mr. Pearce, Mr. Roskam, Mr. Shimkus, Mr. 
 Sensenbrenner, Mr. Westmoreland, and Mr. Young of Alaska) introduced 
 the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and 
                                Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To direct the Federal Trade Commission to revise the Telemarketing 
    Sales Rule to explicitly prohibit the sending of a text message 
containing an unsolicited advertisement to a cellular telephone number 
              listed on the national do-not-call registry.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Stop M-Spam Abuse as a Sales 
industry Habit Act of 2008'' or as the ``SMASH Act of 2008''.

SEC. 2. TEXT MESSAGES CONTAINING UNSOLICITED ADVERTISEMENTS SENT TO 
              CELLULAR TELEPHONES EXPLICITLY PROHIBITED.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Federal Trade Commission shall issue 
regulations to revise the Telemarketing Sales Rule to explicitly 
prohibit, as an abusive telemarketing act or practice, the sending of 
any electronic commercial message containing an unsolicited 
advertisement to a telephone number that is--
            (1) assigned to a commercial mobile service; and
            (2) listed on the ``do-not-call'' registry established by 
        the Federal Trade Commission pursuant to the Telemarketing 
        Sales Rule (16 C.F.R. 310.4(b)(1)(iii)).
    (b) Definitions.--For purposes of this section:
            (1) Electronic commercial message.--The term ``electronic 
        commercial message'' means any type of message, other than a 
        mobile service commercial message (as defined in section 14(d) 
        of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. 7712(d))), sent to a 
        cellular telephone, including a text message, multimedia 
        message, or any successor type of message.
            (2) Cellular telephone.--The term ``cellular telephone'' 
        means any type of wireless device used to access commercial 
        mobile services.
            (3) Commercial mobile service.--The term ``commercial 
        mobile service'' has the meaning given in section 332(d) of the 
        Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 332(d)).
            (4) Unsolicited advertisement.--The term ``unsolicited 
        adverstisement'' has the meaning given in section 227(a)(5) of 
        the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 227(a)(5)).

SEC. 3. EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS.

    Nothing in this Act shall be interpreted to preclude or override 
the applicability of section 227 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 
U.S.C. 227), section 14 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. 7712), 
or the rules prescribed under section 3 of the Telemarketing and 
Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6102).
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