Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I hate spam, but am concerned that the implementation of details in the law will hinder simple email and marketing activities. I'm especially concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. There are huge problems with this idea, the most important being that companies and organizations like myself and my clients would have to expose some of our valued clients' emails to others. This violates the promises that we've made to them for privacy and forces us to trust other organizations with our valuable customer data. 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, Respectfully Raymond Despres