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President Bush has indicated he will sign the measure, titled the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act Can-Spam . On Friday evening, the Justice Department and the Commerce Department praised Can-Spam as establishing a framework of technological, administrative, civil and criminal tools that provide consumers with options to reduce the volume of unwanted e-mail. Can-Spam appears to be a compromise thats not as far-reaching as some antispam advocates had urged. It permits, but does not require, the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do not spam registry, overrides many state laws, and imposes an opt out standard instead of a more stringent opt in requirement. If the measure becomes law, certain forms of spam will be officially legalized. The final bill says spammers may send as many commercial electronic mail messages as they like-as long as the messages are obviously advertisements with a valid United States postal address or PO box and an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Junk e-mail essentially would be treated like junk postal mail, with nonfraudulent e-mail legalized until the recipient chooses to unsubscribe. Among the five dissenters in the final vote , which was tallied at 3:23 am PST after a night of discussions about Medicare legislation, were two Democratic legislators from the heart of Silicon Valley: Zoe Lofgren and Mike Honda. Ron Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Texas, also voted against the bill. The bill would pre-empt more restrictive state laws, including one that California enacted in September. That law established an opt-in standard and was scheduled to take effect on Jan.
With final passage of this bill, the core of Californias law would never take effect. The Senate approved its version of an antispam bill in October, but the House deadlocked between competing bills supported by Tauzin and Sensenbrenner. Partisan squabbling between Democrats and Republicans earlier in the year over who could claim credit for an antispam law also delayed the process. In July, bickering erupted between the two major parties at a meeting of two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees. Falsifying e-mail header information or using either a mail server or open relay to deceive or mislead recipients about the origin of a commercial e-mail message. Also outlawed is registering for 5 or more e-mail accounts or 2 or more domain names with false information and using them to send commercial e-mail messages.
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