[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 150 (Thursday, October 23, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S13125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CAN-SPAM ACT

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to add my congratulations to the 
authors of the CAN-SPAM Act. This is an important topic, and I am 
pleased that the Senate passed this bill.
  The Internet is a medium that in under a decade has completely 
changed the way we live in this country. And it still has enormous 
untapped potential to enrich our lives and improve and expand 
communications and commerce for all of our citizens. E-mail has been 
called the ``killer application'' of the Internet, and it is truly 
ubiquitous in our daily lives in a way that no one could have predicted 
only a few short years ago. But over the past few years, the spam 
problem has come to threaten the utility of e-mail in very serious way. 
By passing this bill, the Senate has begun to address some of the worst 
abuses false and misleading headers and subject lines, fraudulent and 
pornographic solicitations, the harvesting of addresses and the 
hijacking of addresses to send unsolicited e-mail.
  I am pleased also that the bill will allow legitimate commercial e-
mail to continue to be sent as long as the sender provides a way for 
the recipients to indicate that they do not want to receive such e-mail 
in the future. Not all unsolicited commercial e-mail is bad. E-mail is 
an inexpensive way for businesses to advertise their products and we 
should not try to stamp out all such communications.
  At the same time, some people don't want to receive such e-mails at 
all and they should be able to make that fact known and have their 
wishes respected. In addition to requiring that unsolicited commercial 
e-mail give consumers the ability to opt out of future such 
communications, I am pleased that portions of Senator Schumer's bill, 
which I have cosponsored, will be incorporated into this bill because I 
believe a Do-Not-Email List, modeled on the very popular Do-Not-Call 
List recently activated by the FTC, is something that should be 
created. Senator Schumer's proposal is a sensible and measured approach 
that I think will help get a Do-Not-Email List off the ground promptly.
  It is time to stop spam from bogging down the great promise of the 
Internet and e-mail. I am pleased to have voted for this important 
bill, and I appreciate all the efforts of the Senators who have brought 
us to this point.

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