Unanimous vote for CAN-SPAM Act

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Nov 1, 2003

US Senate approves federal anti-spam legislation.

The US Senate has approved the first federal anti-spam legislation. The 'CAN-SPAM Act' was approved by Senate in a unanimous 97-0 vote at the end of last month. The bill requires bulk commercial emailers to include both opt out provisions and valid email headers and subject lines in their solicitations; failure to do so will carry civil and criminal penalties.

The bill provides for a maximum civil penalty of US$1.5 million for wilful violation of the law and up to five years imprisonment for the use of common spamming techniques.

More controversially, the bill calls for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a 'Do-Not-Spam' list, along similar lines to its Do-Not-Call registry which it set up to shield consumers from unwanted telemarketing communications. However, the idea of a 'Do-Not-Spam' registry has not been welcomed by the FTC, since it does not believe such a list can be secured satisfactorily. With the bill having sailed through Senate, the focus now switches to the House of Representatives - encouragingly, a statement issued by the White House indicated that President Bush would sign an anti-spam bill.

Posted on 1 November 2003 by Virus Bulletin

 Tags

twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.