Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, As an internet marketer and an internet consumer, 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. 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. 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. How is this possible? If before legitimately mailing to a base of subscribers who have opted-in to receive my electronic messages I must check a publicly hosted data base for who have opted out of receiving any information on a particular product, what is to prevent dishonest spammers from going to that same data base and simply harvesting all those names and then spamming them? Not to mention the problem of legitemate marketers who have promised not to share, distribute, or illegally reveal their subscribers' data, having to that exact thing in order to comply with this interpretation of the CAN-SPAM Act. 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, Chris Jack Campobello, South Carolina