12-16-2003 President Bush speech on Anti-Spam Law
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 16, 2003
Fact Sheet: President Bush Signs Anti-Spam Law
On December 16, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Controlling
the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003
(CAN-SPAM Act), which establishes a framework of administrative,
civil, and criminal tools to help America's consumers, businesses, and
families combat unsolicited commercial e-mail, known as spam.
The new law is a pro-consumer measure that allows consumers to choose
to stop further unsolicited spam from a sender. It also provides a
protection against spam containing unmarked sexually-oriented or
pornographic material.
* Spam is a problem for Americans. E-mail is an extremely important
and effective means of communications and is used by millions of
Americans on a daily basis for personal and commercial purposes.
Its convenience and efficiency, however, are increasingly
threatened by the rise in spam. Spam currently accounts for over
half of all e-mail traffic. Today, most spam is fraudulent or
deceptive in nature. The growth in spam also imposes significant
costs on Internet Service Providers (ISPs), businesses, and other
organizations, since they can only handle a finite volume of
e-mail without making further investments in their infrastructure.
* The law provides a well-balanced approach that will help to
address some of the harmful impacts of spam. The problems
associated with spam cannot be solved by Federal legislation
alone, but will require the development and adoption of new
technologies. Nonetheless, the law will help address the problems
associated with the rapid growth and abuse of spam. The new law
establishes important "rules of the road" for civil enforcement by
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), other Federal agencies, State
attorneys general, and ISPs to help curb spam. It also creates new
criminal penalties to assist in deterring the most offensive forms
of spam, including unmarked sexually-oriented messages and e-mails
containing fraudulent headers. At the same time, the law caps
statutory damages for civil violations in most cases. The law also
provides greater certainty in interstate commerce for businesses
that would otherwise face a wide diversity of state laws on spam.
* The law builds upon the Administration's efforts to empower
consumers with choices in the technology field. Under the law,
consumers are provided with a choice not to receive any further
unsolicited messages from a sender. Senders that do not honor a
consumer's request are subject to civil penalties.
* The law strengthens a cornerstone of the Administration's agenda
to help protect children against pornography. The law makes spam
containing unmarked sexually-oriented material a criminal offense.
The labeling requirement gives parents a tool to protect their
children from such messages. Under the law, senders of e-mail are
required to place warning labels on messages containing
sexually-oriented or pornographic material. If they knowingly
violate this requirement, spammers are subject to fines or
imprisonment.
* The Administration supports the law's tools to help deter the
harmful effects of deceptive and misleading spam. The law
establishes both civil and criminal prohibitions to deter spammers
from using false or misleading identification, and imposes
penalties against spammers for these violations.
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