Anti-Spam Bill Passed by Congress

Congress on Monday approved the first national effort to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail pitches offering prescription drugs, cheap loans and other come-ons.

President Bush has indicated that he intended to sign the measure into law. The White House revamped its own e-mail system last summer after a flood of so-called spam.

Clogged inboxes have become a leading irritation among Internet users, an increasing business expense for companies and a popular target for Washington interest before an election year.

“Today, it’s a nightmare that threatens to overwhelm people’s legitimate use of the Internet,” said Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). “All the technologies and the filters have failed to keep our inboxes free of junk.”

The House voted without dissent to approve slight changes that Senate lawmakers made to the “can spam” legislation, which would outlaw the shadiest techniques used by the Internet’s most prolific e-mailers. The bill would supplant tougher anti-spam laws already passed in some states, including a California law that takes effect Jan. 1.

The bill was among the farthest-reaching Internet measures approved during Bush’s term, which has largely continued the Clinton administration’s hands-off approach toward regulating America’s technology industry. The last such major legislation was a 1998 law banning Web sites from collecting personal information from children under 13.

The anti-spam bill encourages the Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of e-mail addresses and includes penalties for spammers of up to five years in prison. The Senate previously voted 97 to 0 to approve the bill.

The legislation would prohibit senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identities by using a false return address or misleading subject line. It also would prohibit senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites and require such e-mails to let recipients indicate that they did not want future mass mailings.