mainsleazespam.com: You CAN SPAM Act 2003

U.S. Congress Passes the "You CAN SPAM Act of 2003"

Senators and Congressional Representatives, in an almost unanimous paroxysm of delight at voting for a law they knew was bad but which they believed would convince the average American Citizen that Congress was REALLY on their side, voted into law what many anti-spammers refer to as the "You CAN SPAM Act" of 2003. The underlying problem of this bit of feel-good legislation is that it implicits legalizes unsolicited bulk email. If law enforcement agencies choose to enforce the prohibitions against certain acts, such as proxy hijacking and other unauthorized use of computers, the law will achieve the aim of the DMA and the companies whose lobbyists purchashed this flawed legislations, namely, the fly by night criminal spammers may be reduced in number. Of course the question then becomes what do we do when our inboxes fill up just as completely, rendering them just as useless, with unsolicited spam from "legitimate" companies, with subject lines that flag them as advertisements. Of course ISPs will immediately bounce all such legal spam, so the companies in the end will not get their way. Whether they give up or go back to Congress later in 2004 as this starts happening and try to get a new law that forces ISPs to accept their spam will be an interesting trend to watch for.

The United States Congress Passes, Effective January 1, 2004,
The "You CAN SPAM Act"

Update: Feb 2, 2004: White House Claims CAN SPAM Act as a Success:"
Fact Sheet: Making Life Better for America's Consumers

    mondaq.com. March 17, 2004.
    On January 1, 2004, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 took effect. The new law followed more than five years of debate on the issue of "spam" and was the product of a Congressional agreement reached at the close of the First Session of the 108th Congress. Spam—unsolicited commercial e-mail—has become so prevalent that Congress found that it accounted for more than 50 percent of all e-mail traffic in 2001; other estimates are even higher. The CAN-SPAM Act may have a significant impact on all businesses – including franchise companies – who use e-mail to communicate with (or advertise to) customers.
         United States: The Can-Spam Act