Comments:

Comment #1 Regarding the "No-EMail Registry"... In general, don't like the idea of a "No-E-Mail Registry" because I think it really does prevent bonafide and useful e-mail from reaching specific, targeted potential clients. (throwing out the baby with the bath water). If this does come to pass, then there needs to be some sort of exemption for us little tiny business people who haven't the technical expertise or financial resources to link into such a registry. Comment #2 Regarding Item E.2 "Forward to a Friend Scenarios" This one really scares me. Throughout the history of commerce it has been well known that one of the best advertisements is that of "word of mouth" from knowledgeable sources particularly within a common peer group. I strongly believe that a forwarded e-mail, from a knowledgeable peer, should be exempt from any regulations. Comment #3 In general, I think we need some sort of blanket exemptions for legitimate small businesses with ligitimate products targeted at potential customers who would have a "reasonable likelihood" of being interested in the product. I know this sounds vague but I'm really concerned that, if we go overboard on killing spam, we are going to put a lot of little businesses out of business and deprive a lot of people of exposure to products and services they might find valuable. Comment #4 Finally I propose an e-mail charge as an alternative to the "CAN-SPAM" act. The fee should be based on some sort of step function. For example: no charge for up to 100 e-mails/month; $.01 per e-mail for 100 to 1000/e-mails/month; $.025 per e-mail for 1000 to 5000 e-mails/month and so on. This would do more to stop the spammers that we really want to stop (the big guys that harvest and send out millions of spams) than anything else I can think of.