S.1618 - 105th Congress, Unsolicited Email! A Bunch of Bull!

Have you received email solicitations with this paragraph
included somewhere in the message:

"This message is sent in compliance with the new email bill
section 301. Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the
105th U.S. Congress this message cannot be considered
Spam as long as we include the way to be removed,
Paragraph (a)(c) of S.1618. Further transmissions to you
by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to
you by sending a request to be removed to __"

Well it is, in plain language, a bunch of BULL!

U.S. Senate Bill 1618, an Anti-slamming Amendments Act,
contained a Section 301, relating to transmissions of
unsolicited commercial electronic mail. S.1618 was
approved by the U.S. Senate on May 12, 1998. It was
then referred to the House Committee on Commerce on
October 21, 1998. The Bill DIED in committee and was
never passed into law by the 105th Congress. Nor has
the 106th Congress passed anything similar at this time.
I was able to confirm this information both by checking
the U.S. Senate records and specifically by an inquiry
with one of my Senators.

So first, the quoted paragraph above is in error since the
bill never became law. Secondly, if it did become law
the messages I generally receive citing the above, are
quite deficient in compliance with the alleged law that
they reference. Here, in part, are the exact requirements
of the bill that would have been law in respect to email
if in fact the bill had passed:

-------------------------
SEC. 301. REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO TRANSMISSIONS
OF UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL.

(a) INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN TRANSMISSIONS-

(1) IN GENERAL- A person who transmits an
unsolicited commercial electronic mail message shall
cause to appear in each such electronic mail message
the information specified in paragraph (2).

(2) COVERED INFORMATION- The following information
shall appear at the beginning of the body of an unsolicited
commercial electronic mail message under paragraph (1):

(A) The name, physical address, electronic
mail address, and telephone number of the person who
initiates transmission of the message.

(B) The name, physical address, electronic
mail address, and telephone number of the person who created
the content of the message, if different from the information
under subparagraph (A).

(C) A statement that further transmissions
of unsolicited commercial electronic mail to the recipient
by the person who initiates transmission of the message may
be stopped at no cost to the recipient by sending a reply to
the originating electronic mail address with the word
`remove' in the subject line.
------------------------

How many messages citing this "Law" as justification for
sending you SPAM contain the items in Para. (2)(A) & (B).
I haven't seen any out of the 1000's I received. In fact,
in those that I try to send a message back to, the reply
address is usually invalid.

Plus, even though they furnish you with a means at the
end of the message to "Remove" yourself from the mailings,
it is usually a false address or url when you actually
try to remove yourself.

This type of mis-information spreads like wildfire once
someone makes it up and pretty soon everybody takes it
for the truth. It is similar to all those emails, forwarded
by the thousands, proclaiming that Microsoft is going to
pay you over $200 for each person you forward the message
to.

The use of this statement of the "Law" in sending unsolicited
email advertisements does not diminish the fact that they
are still SPAM no matter how a mailer tries to camouflage
his or her efforts. It should also make you think twice, no
matter how great the offer looks, about the integrity of the
individual and/or company sending it to you and whether you
want to deal with them..

About the Author

Joe Reinbold, Publisher of Home Income Quarterly
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