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 and the fact that online business seem to be singled out when postal, newspaper, magazine and other forms of offline unsolicited advertising are not held to the same stringent standards as CAN-SPAM. Either all forms of online and offline advertising should be held to equal standards or none of them should! I firmly believe that CAN-SPAM is immoral and ineffective as to the original problem. There are so many problems and costs associated with this idea of suppression lists, and so much damage done to consumers and businesses alike, that I feel I must urge you to consider this matter most carefully, AND TO NOT IMPLEMENT IT! 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. Most of the eZines and newsletters to which I subscribe will stop publishing due to the prohibitive cost of maintaining suppression lists. The end result is a tightening of the free exchange of information in this country. Government has no business doing that. 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, Respectfully, Brian Schaeffer *REDACTED PERSONAL INFORMATION*