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 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. I am the owner of 7 safelists that are provided by Safelist Builders. Every one on the safelists have to sign up and then verify their email address that they want to use. By signing up and than using the safelist to advertise their ads, they give permission for the other members to send them ads also. Every member has their own business that they want to advertise. A lot of the ads are from affiliates for companies are on the Internet. The question the suppression lists makes is, how will the members know not to advertise a certain product or company, if one of the members has said that they do not want to receive any information about the products or companies? Even though my safelists are small, I belong to safelists that have 1000's of members. We have each signed up to send and receive the messages. It is beyond thought, to be able to know what to send and what not to send. There are website that ask if a person wants to hear more about their products. If the person say yes, then email messages are sent to the list of people that said yes. When a person no longer wants to receive the messages, there is a link they can click on to stop the email. It is the people that send mail with out permission that need to be stoped! They often have software that harvest email addresses without permission. To my way of thinking, this is CAN-SPAM. You need to make an amendment to the CAN-SPAM Act to allow the companies and the safelist members to send mail to their lists. These would be the lists that people have signed up for. Respectfully, Sandra Crawford Kansas, USA