Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, Like most Americans, I support your efforts to control unsolicited bulk e-mail, particularly pornography and other offensive material. However, I am greatly concerned about the probable unintended consequences of the CAN-SPAM Act on legitimiate businesses. I am particularly concerned with the requirement for commercial e-mail senders to maintain and possibly share suppression lists of people who "opt out" of receiving commercial e-mails. My employer's Web site allows visitors to sign up for several e-mail newsletters. Visitors must affirmatively opt-in to receive these e-mails, and in each e-mail, we offer the recipient the opportunity to opt out of future e-mails. We also promise to never share our e-mail subscriber lists with anyone, for any reason. If people request to opt out, we comply as soon as possible. Requiring me to maintain suppression lists will seriously damage our ability to continue this service to our clients and friends. Businesses like ours are not who CAN-SPAM was designed to go after, but this requirement will very likely have that effect. The time and expense of maintaining the suppression list will be onerous. Even worse, these suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam, not less. I find it hard to believe the FTC would countenance such a move. I urge you to reconsider any regulations requiring the maintenance and sharing of suppression lists. Respectfully, Jim Austin Pennsylvania United States of America