More than 12,000 comments from the public on the CAN-SPAM Act flooded the Federal Trade Commission in response to its March call for feedback, with companies like Visa, MasterCard, AT&T, Reed Elsevier, Experian Marketing Solutions, Verizon and Wells Fargo & Co. weighing in.
The comments were solicited March 11 to help the FTC write its recommendations to Congress on how numerous aspects of CAN-SPAM should be shaped. The comment period closed April 20, an extension of the original April 12 deadline.
FTC Attorney Michael Goodman, who is handling the comment process, said it would be premature to comment about whether any trends were emerging among the responses, such as comments in favor of or against the controversial proposed Do-Not-E-Mail list.
The agency received a total of 12,525 comments, with 6,300 of them coming as form letters from individual members of the National Association of Realtors. The realtors letters, which are mostly directed in opposition of a Do-Not-E-Mail registry, are represented on the site by a few representative letters. The remaining 6,225 letters are Federal Register /Vol. 70, No. 12/Wednesday, January 19, 2005 ::
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLhttp://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/canspam/. index.htm. the FTC does not have jurisdiction over any entity SPAM as an effort to stem the flood of
http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/register/2005/2005_3111.pdfHOME |
posted in full on the FTC site.
Im glad we received the volume we did. More is better on this front, said Goodman.
A quick reading of the posted responses gives an indication of the individuals, organizations and businesses that found the issue important enough to respond.
The National Association of Realtors, which took a strong interest in the matter, took aim at the idea of a Do-Not-E-Mail registry. A letter from Realtor Dwight Hathaway said such a registry goes too far and will result in penalizing small businesses for engaging in legitimate e-mail communications with past clients and consumers living in the neighborhoods they serve. Techdirt. Stories filed under "spam"::
Paul make it to the front page of Digg on a daily basis, and any blog post that triggers a Google Alert for his name is sure to see a flood of comments
http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?tag=spamHOME |
FTC Recommends $100000 Bounty for Spammers' Heads::
Federal Trade Commission said that it had released a report which assessed whether offering bounties to turn in spammers would help stem the flood.
http://www.techarena.in/comments.php?shownews=1878HOME |
Visa USA also weighed in with comments. Among other things, Visa said the FTCs efforts in implementing CAN-SPAM should focus on the e-mails sent by entities that have no previous relationship with the recipient, instead of legitimate businesses such as Visa, which often send[s] e-mail to current and past customers and those they believe have interest in a particular product or service.
AT&T weighed in as well, arguing that the 10-day period currently allowed by CAN-SPAM for processing opt-out requests should be expanded to 30 days.
Other well-known entities that responded include the National Automobile Dealers Association, the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association, the Newspaper Association of America, the Small Business Administration, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Not surprisingly, the Direct Marketing Association and Online Publishers Association, TRUSTe and the E-Mail Service Provider Coalition commented. Conspicuously absent was the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which chose not to comment, citing a lack of resources.
CAN-SPAM didnt quite reach the level of public comment enjoyed by the federal Do-Not-Call list. The FTC said it considered more than 64,000 public comments on that issue, with 300 to 400 of those coming from industry groups.
CAN-SPAM became effective January first, making it a misdemeanor to intentionally send bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) with falsified headers. It sets civil penalties for other common spamming practices.
Pre-Article:Tomorrows CIOs Will Need Business Skills First
Next-Article:Nvidia to Support Shader Model 3.0
| 
CAN-SPAM Comments Flood FTC 
PRINT
Add to favorites