Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 ON THE ONE HAND... In response to E.1(2) above, it can be-- and probably WILL be-- argued in court cases that a company that has clearly or admittedly received "opt-out" instructions or requests from a customer or e-mail recipient has no control over whether or not a third party that advertises on its behalf has ascertained that none of the e-mail prospects on its list(s) has/have already given "opt-out" instructions or requests to a particular company or individual that is now being advertised on behalf of. Even a written, presumably pre-existing policy supplied by the advertising third party may prove inconsequential if the third party doing the advertising willfully or negligently fails to determine that none of its e-mail prospects has/have already demanded or requested "opt-out" status from the mailing list that its company clientele has direct or indirect access to. ON THE OTHER HAND... While admittedly-- and perhaps obviously-- not as schooled in dealing with such issues as are some other parties, this writer and aspiring marketer wonders if the provisions and the restrictions suggested and engendered in this FTC Act will not eventuate (intentionally and/or otherwise) in the crippling of all fair and legitimate small-, medium- and large-scale, so- called "e-commerce." Perhaps more directly, one asks: Do the legislator and non-legislator proponents of this Act think that its beginning or continued enforcement will make the at times apparent and at times genuine flood of e-mail known as "SPAM" go away? Do the legislator and non-legislator proponents of this Act think that its beginning or continued enforcement will make problems like online (or "wire") fraud-- or what legislators and law-enforcement officials view as online (or "wire") fraud-- go away? To appeal-- for a moment-- to the world of psychology and psychiatry, the mostly unconscious and largely implicit foundation of much of (modern) society's resent over and demonization of "SPAM" is PERHAPS the awareness of the fact that someone, somewhere is somehow profiting from what the rest of us routinely view and label as "junk," "schemes" and the like. Yes, there is the genuine-- and, for some people, the constant-- risk of temporarily losing control of our e-mail accounts when our(typically) "free," sponsorship-driven e-mail privileges are staggered by e-mail "in-boxes" being stuffed with near-invariably unsolicited (and usually unexciting) offers and the like, yet we do not much appreciate the presumably obnoxious, hyperbole-driven, "in your face" reminders of such ingloriously enterprising constructs, it would seem.