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Anti-UBE Initiative

 

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Anti-spam legislation:

H.R. 2214

Introduced in House of Representatives on May 22, 2003 The

RID Spam Act

Robert Goodlatte Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced H.R. 2214, the RID Spam Act, legislation which provides consumers the choice to opt-out of commercial email and cracks down on senders who falsify their identity to send unwanted e-mail that clogs in-boxes.
      "It is time to can spam. Unsolicited e-mail, such as advertisements, solicitations or chain letters, is the 'junk mail' of the information age," Goodlatte, who co-chairs the Congressional Internet Caucus, said. "These unwanted messages burden consumers by slowing down their e-mail connections and cause big problems for small Internet Service Providers that are trying to compete with larger companies and larger servers. The RID Spam Act is an exciting development in the effort to curb spam, and I am hopeful that it will move forward quickly. "
      The RID Spam Act makes it a criminal offense to send a commercial e-mail which falsifies the sender's identity. Additionally, the legislation makes it a crime if the sender fails to place warning labels on spam that includes sexually explicit material, or if the spammer "harvests" (goes into an online business' electronic list of e-mail and the takes the list without permission) an e-mail and uses that e-mail to violate another section of the bill.
      "I constantly hear from constituents who are understandably frustrated by spam e-mail, particularly those that are explicit in nature," Goodlatte continued. "This legislation will assist parents in protecting their children from pornography and other undesirable e-mail solicitations."
      The civil provisions of the legislation make it mandatory for all commercial e-mails to include the following:
  • Clear notice that the e-mail is an advertisement or solicitation
  • Clear notice of the opportunity of the recipient to opt out of future unsolicited commercial e-mail
  • A working return e-mail address that a recipient can use to send the message that he/she does not want to receive any more unsolicited e-mail from the sender
  • A valid physical street address for the sender
Additionally the bill prohibits the sender from:
  • Sending more commercial e-mail to the recipient once the recipient has opted out of receiving future commercial e-mail
  • Using fraudulent routing and header information in commercial e-mail
  • Sending commercial e-mail that have been "harvested"
The legislation does not preempt state laws regarding the falsification of a sender's identity, computer fraud laws, or laws such as general trespass or consumer protection statutes.
      The RID Spam Act has been referred to both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, on which Goodlatte serves.

H. R. 2214

Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act of 2003

Find any version of any law at the Thomas.loc.gov (Thomas Library of Congress) site. Upon arrival you can enter a specific law or keywords. Use "H.R. 2214" for the table of contents for this law.

To see the progress of a bill, after you've arrived at the bill's page, click on the button called "Status" -- Sorry we cannot link directly to the pages because they are dynamic. You need to be IN the system before linking to the pages.

Fighting the War against UBE (Spam)

  1. Contact Your Senator
  2. Contact Your Representative
  3. Inform them both that you support the H.R.2214 RID Spam Act
  4. THEN Contact your ISP, to say you Support the Anti-UBE Initiative
  5. Find the Anti-Spam Legislation in your State
  6. Tell your group about it, become an Anti-UBE Advocate with UGN!
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