Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>]

...seems sufficiently strong to me:

"SEC. 103. DEFINITIONS.
(2) Commercial electronic mail message-
(B) REFERENCE TO COMPANY OR WEBSITE- The inclusion of a reference to a
commercial entity or a link to the website of a commercial entity in an
electronic mail message does not, by itself, cause such message to be
treated as a commercial electronic mail message for purposes of this title
if the contents or circumstances of the message indicate a primary purpose
other than commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product
or service."
"(19) UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL MESSAGE- The term
'unsolicited commercial electronic mail message' means any commercial
electronic mail message that--
(A) is not a transactional or relationship message; and
(B) is sent to a recipient without the recipient's prior affirmative or
implied consent."

SECs. 105 and 106 fairly thoroughly define what is not permitted, and SEC.
109 establishes a Do-Not-Email Registry.

Granted, it screws any state that wishes to abolish SPAM in its entirety --
"SEC. 108. EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS.
(b) STATE LAW-
(1) IN GENERAL- This title supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of
a State or political subdivision of a State that expressly regulates the
use of electronic mail to send commercial messages, except to the extent
that any such statute, regulation, or rule prohibits falsity or deception
in any portion of a commercial electronic mail message or information
attached thereto."
-- but if you were under the impression that Congress was simply going to
stomp out such a lucrative industry, then you might have forgotten about
our Capitalist economy and the marketing lobby.  As long as spammers and
their client companies are turning huge profits, Congress is not going to
outlaw it.

The best way to eliminate spam is to make it not profitable.  The two
routes to that end are (1)consumer education and (2)technology.  I could
write a whole book on why consumer education won't work, so the best route
to recovery is via technological defeat.  If it becomes impossible for
spam to ever reach everyone's mailboxes, then click-throughs will become
impossible and spammers will go out of business.  I leave it to the gurus
to devise such technology, but here are a few ideas:

STARTTLS extension to SMTP as described in RFC2487:
http://whatexit.org/tal/mywritings/endofspam.html

ChoiceMail One 2.0, opt-in email:
http://www.digiportal.com/choicemail.html

--Alan

Jeremy Portzer said:
> If you are against Unsolicted Commercial Email (spam), you should call
> your representative immediately to register your opposition to this
> bill, for the reasons outlined below.  It is expected to come directly
> to a House floor vote this week.  See below.
>
> --Jeremy
>
> -----Forwarded Message-----
> From: John Levine <johnl AT cauce.org>
> To: comments AT cauce.org
> Subject: CAUCE NEWS, Vol 7, No 3, November 2003
> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:23:19 +0000
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>                             CAUCE NEWS
>                         Volume 7, Number 3
>                           November, 2003
>
> In this issue:
>
> * ACTION ALERT: Call your U.S. Rep to stop the CAN SPAM bill
>
> IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU GOT THIS MESSAGE: Please see the
> "About This Message" section at the end.
>
> - --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> * ACTION ALERT: Call your U.S. Rep to stop the CAN SPAM Act
>
> On October 22nd, the U.S. Senate passed S.877, the Burns-Wyden CAN
> SPAM Act.  While some parts of the bill would be helpful, its main
> effect would be to legitimize most kinds of spam that aren't actively
> deceptive or fraudulent.  It provides no private right of action for
> recipients of spam to get recourse against spammers, and it overrides
> any stronger state laws such as the new California law.  For these
> reasons CAUCE strongly opposes the bill in its current form.  As some
> have commented, this bill says that big companies CAN SPAM you.
>
> Consumer groups including the Consumer Federation of America and the
> Privacy Rights Clearing House have expressed their opposition in
> a letter to Congress that CAUCE co-signed.   Eight state Attorneys
> General have written to Congress expressing their opposition and
> their belief that the act would be counterproductive.
>
> Since Congress is planning to adjourn this week, and there is a lot of
> political pressure to "do something" about spam, there is a good
> chance that the bill will be brought to the floor of the House for a
> vote this week, bypassing the usual committee process.  If the House
> approves the bill, the President will likely sign it into law.  The
> Direct Marketing Association is pushing hard for the law's passage, to
> override the much stronger California state law scheduled to take
> effect at the end of the year.
>
> CAUCE wants to mobilize our 50,000 members to speak out against this
> bill. We must all do our part. Please, pick up the phone and call your
> elected representative before it is too late.
>
> Your U.S. Representative needs to hear that you want an effective
> anti-spam law, but S.877 isn't it.  A short phone call is much more
> effective than a paper letter, e-mail, or fax.  Call your Rep, ask for
> the legislative assistant, explain that you're calling about the CAN
> SPAM act, S.877, explain in a sentence or two why it would make the
> spam problem worse rather than better, because it still permits many
> kinds of spam, doesn't have good enforcement, and doesn't let states
> enforce their own stronger laws.  That's why you want them to vote
> against it if it comes to the floor.  If you don't know your Rep's
> phone number, see the directory at
> http://clerk.house.gov/members/mcapdir.php
>
> This bill would normally be considered by the Judiciary and Commerce
> committees before being brought to the House floor.  If your member is
> on either of those committees (see below), it's doubly important for
> you to call and to point out that the current bill is no good, and the
> committee needs to work on it.  There's no guarantee they'll make it
> better, but at least they'll have a chance to debate and amend it, and
> the more clearly you tell them what you want, the more likely they are
> to improve it.
>
> IF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IS IN THE LIST BELOW, he or she is a member
> of the Judiciary Committee.
>
> Mr. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (Wisconsin), Chairman
>
> Republican Members         Democratic Members
> Mr. Hyde (Illinois)        Mr. Conyers (Michigan) Ranking
> Mr. Coble (North Carolina) Mr. Berman (California)
> Mr. Smith (Texas)          Mr.
>  Boucher (Virginia)
> Mr. Gallegly (California)  Mr. Nadler (New York)
> Mr. Goodlatte (Virginia)   Mr. Scott (Virginia)
> Mr. Chabot (Ohio)          Mr. Watt (North Carolina)
> Mr. Jenkins (Tennessee)    Ms. Lofgren (California)
> Mr. Cannon (Utah)          Ms. Jackson Lee (Texas)
> Mr. Bachus (Alabama)       Ms. Waters (California)
> Mr. Hostettler (Indiana)   Mr. Meehan (Massachusetts)
> Mr. Green (Wisconsin)      Mr. Delahunt (Massachusetts)
> Mr. Keller (Florida)       Mr. Wexler (Florida)
> Ms. Hart  (Pennsylvania)   Ms. Baldwin (Wisconsin)
> Mr. Flake (Arizona)        Mr. Weiner (New York)
> Mr. Pence (Indiana)        Mr. Schiff (California)
> Mr. Forbes (Virginia)      Ms. Sanchez (California)
> Mr. King (Iowa)
> Mr. Carter (Texas)
> Mr. Feeney (Florida)
> Mrs. Blackburn (Tennessee)
>
>
> IF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IS IN THE LIST BELOW, he or she is a member of
> the Commerce Committee.
>
> W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Louisiana      Ralph M. Hall, Texas
> Tom Allen, Maine                    Darrell Issa, California
> Joe Barton, Texas                   Christopher John, Louisiana
> Charles F. Bass, New Hampshire      Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
> Michael Bilirakis, Florida          Karen McCarthy, Missouri
> Roy Blunt, Missouri                 Charlie Norwood, Georgia
> Mary Bono, California               C.L. "Butch" Otter, Idaho
> Rick Boucher, Virginia              Frank Pallone Jr., New Jersey
> Sherrod Brown, Ohio                 Charles "Chip" Pickering, Mississipi
> Richard Burr, North Carolina        Joseph R. Pitts, Pennsylvania
> Steve Buyer, Indiana                George Radanovich, California
> Lois Capps, California              Mike Rogers, Michigan
> Christopher Cox, California         Bobby L. Rush, Illinois
> Barbara Cubin, Wyoming              Jan Schakowsky, Illinois
> Jim Davis, Florida                  John B. Shadegg, Arizona
> Diana DeGette, Colorado             John Shimkus, Illinois
> Nathan Deal, Georgia                Hilda L. Solis, California
> Peter Deutsch, Florida              Cliff Stearns, Florida
> John D. Dingell, Michigan           Ted Strickland, Ohio
> Michael F. Doyle, Pennsylvania      Bart Stupak, Michigan
> Eliot L. Engel, New York            Lee Terry, Nebraska
> Anna G. Eshoo, California           Edolphus Towns, New York
> Mike Ferguson, New Jersey           Fred Upton, Michigan
> Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky            Greg Walden, Oregon
> Vito Fossella, New York             Henry A. Waxman, California
> Paul E. Gillmor, Ohio               Ed Whitfield, Kentucky
> Bart Gordon, Tennessee              Heather Wilson, New Mexico
> Gene Green, Texas                   Albert R. Wynn, Maryland
> James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania
>
> For a copy of the bill, see
> http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html
>
> For the open letter from consumer organizations, see
> http://www.cauce.org/legislation/openletter.shtml
>
> - --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> About CAUCE
>
> CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email,
> http://www.cauce.org) is the world's largest Internet-based advocacy
> organization, with tens of thousands of members across the United
> States and supporters across the world. It supports and works toward
> passage of legislation prohibiting unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
> CAUCE has no budget, no office and is run by an all-volunteer board
> using donated resources.
>
> - --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> About This Message:
>
> This message was written and broadcast by the Coalition Against
> Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. It is copyright 2003 by the Coalition
> Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail.
>
> We encourage redistribution of this message or items from it, as long
> as they are not spammed anywhere, are on-topic for any forum to which
> you send them, and include our copyright notice.  When in doubt, post
> the URL of our site (http://www.cauce.org) instead, or put it in your
> signature.  Press, broadcast, and Internet media may treat this
> material as they would a press release. For other commercial
> reproduction rights, contact John Levine <johnl AT cauce.org>.