Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, Thank you for your efforts in trying to initiate a program that will reduce the amount of spam. I am concerned about the provisions that would require merchants to keep suppression lists. This would cause many problems and increased costs that most small businesses would not begin to be able to afford not to mention potential privacy issues and hackers as well as the added processing time it would take for every campaign mailing. The costs, potential problems, and complexity involved in this would pose such problems that businesses would suffer and would have to pass the costs of the solutions on to their customers. This reduces the advantage of lower prices that most web-based businesses have over their brick-and-mortar competitiors. A required suppression list would do unrepairable damamge to many legitimate ezine publishers and businesses. My concern is focused on the harm that can be done to publishers who require permission from the consumer prior to adding them to any list. These businesses are not the spammers and are not who CAN-SPAM was designed to put out of business, but a required suppression list will very likely have that effect. Also a required suppression list could adversely effect consumers as well. The list would deny access to those who would have changed their mind after joining such a list as well as the probability of the list being hacked by spammers thus leading to more spam for the listed people instead of less. I am quite concerned about the possible adverse effects and the potential problems this version of the CAN-SPAM ruling could have on web-based businesses, consumers, and the economy. I would like to urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems and come up with a more workable solution that won't "throw the baby out with the dirty water." Some suggestions would be to require workable web sites or email addresses for opting out of a list server database, requiring meaningful FROM addresses that would easily identify the sender/originator, and requiring the name and adress information of the originator. Anything that would make it easy for a recipient to contact the sender and oringinator if they wish to stop additional messages. I do not relish the job that you have at hand in getting everything worded in such a manner that it will be effective while stopping spammers from exploiting loopholes or destroying a lot of good businesses who strive to eliminate spam from their mailings. I would also like to encourage you to take your time and refine the ruling so that it is an effective document. With respect and prayers, James D. Williams Blanket, Texas, USA