Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I am in favor of controlling the problem of unsolicited bulk email. However, I am extremely 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. It is, in most cases, impossible to know the intent of an individual when they send an unsubscribe request, beyond that they don't wish to receive further email from that list at that address at that moment. People unsubscribe from lists for a number of reasons. In rough order of likelihood: The content no longer interests them. They get too much mail from that specific list. They get too much mail in general. Something in that specific email rubbed them the wrong way. They mistook the email for something it wasn't. (Spam or another publication are the most common.) They want to get that publication at a different address. They're unsubscribing temporarily because of an extended vacation or other absence, and wish to lower their email load while away. There are other reasons, but these are the most common. Very few people expect that everything they receive with any publication will be of interest to them. They read and use what is of interest, and ignore the rest. It is VERY uncommon for someone to unsubscribe from a list because of the mention of a specific product or service. If each of those unsubscribe requests, regardless of reason, leads to the sender being put on the suppression list of one or more merchants, you end up with a lot of people who might be interested in the product being unable to hear about it from the publishers whose mail they still wish to receive. 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, as specified above. To make matters worse, 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, Ms. Macias MEXICO