Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I applaud your efforts to curb the problem of unsolicited bulk email. However, I am concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. There are so many problems and costs associated with this idea, and so much damage done to consumers and businesses alike, that I feel I must urge you to consider this matter most carefully. Requirement of the use of suppression lists will seriously damage many of the legitimate publications available on the net. My specific concern is for harm to publishers who require permission from the consumer prior to adding them to any list. They're not who CAN-SPAM was designed to put out of business, but this requirement will very likely have that effect. There's also the potential for significant harm to consumers, because of the problem of properly knowing their intent when they unsubscribe from a list. On top of that, these suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam instead of less. I think it's most important to have people formulating and then administering such regulations who REALLY understand the art and technical science of e-mail communication and marketing. Naturally, your (and the industry's) objective is to stop this greedy, wasteful practice of spamming; but it certainly is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or to make it such an onerous task to use email marketing, that the majority of we honest marketers are severely penalized--and the general public is placed in an insecure position--by regulations and rules that add nothing to the objective of stopping spam and protecting the public. We have this new, beautiful communications method that has been invented and now we are on the verge of wrecking it with over-regulation. These rules will drive all those who can afford it directly into the hands of the RSS advocates, ruining e-mail as a standard of communication, rendering it useless; and leaving only the rich, large multi-nationals who can easily pay for expensive systems of RSS and other sophisticated systems to monopolize communication for business. Isn't this the exact opposite of what we are trying to do here? I was quite surprised at the potential problems this ruling could involve, and urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems, Respectfully, R MacNaughton Florida, USA