Spamming, Slamming, and Billing Legislation Working Way Through Congress

(June 18, 1998)  The Senate held a hearing on anti-spamming legislation.  It   has already passed the Senate, but is pending in the House.  The measure would require junk e-mailers to identify themselves on messages, and honor requests from recipients to be removed from mailing lists.  This provision is part of a larger bill banning slamming, and regulating the content of phone companies' monthly bills to customers.

The Senate Commerce Committee, Communications Subcommittee, held its spamming hearing Wednesday morning.  Chairman Conrad Burns (R-MT) presided, and several other Senators, including the sponsors of the anti-spamming bill, Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), participated.

Sen. Burns stated at the start of the hearing that:

"'Spamming' is truly the scourge of the Information Age. This problem has become so widespread that it has begun to burden our information infrastructure. Entire new networks have had to be constructed to deal with it, when resources would be far better spent on educational or commercial needs.  Spamming is especially troublesome to consumers in rural areas such as Montana. Often, rural residents must pay long distance charges to receive these unwanted solicitations, many of which contain fraudulent messages."  (See, Burns' Opening Statement.)

Senator Murkowski stated in opening that:

"For some in the Internet community, our solution does not go far enough. They propose an outright ban on unsolicited e-mail. I believe such a ban would establish a dangerous precedent and would erode the protections of the First Amendment. The government simply should not dictate what a consumer sees in his or her mailbox. We have been down this road before with the Communications Decency Act. The Supreme Court by a unanimous vote has made very clear what it thinks of such sweeping bans on Internet material. Consumers should have the final word in deciding what comes into their mailboxes, not the government."  (See, Murkowski Opening Statement.)

The bill would give enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission.

Several witnesses supported the bill, including Randall Boe of America Online, and FTC Commission Sheila Anthony.

The Murkowski-Torricelli anti-spamming bill, originally designated S. 771, was attached as an amendment to the anti-slamming bill,  S. 1618, which passed the Senate on May 12.  Similar legislation has not yet passed in the House.

S. 1618 was also passed with an amendment offered by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that would require telephone companies to include certain statements on their customers' monthly bills.  That amendment deals with the ongoing debate over the "Gore tax."   The Federal Communications Commission has mandated subsidization of schools' and libraries' costs of telecommunications services, Internet access, and computer networking.   The program is funded by charges assessed on long distance phone companies, who in turn pass the charges on to their consumers.  Recently, several phone companies stated that they would put statements on their bills informing customers that they are being assessed a charge to support government programs.  The Rockefeller amendment seeks to dissuade these phone companies from including these statements.

The House version of the anti-spamming bill, H.R. 3888, parallels S. 1618 as enacted by the Senate, except that it lacks the phone company billing statement requirement.   Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) is the lead sponsor of the House bill.  It has been referred to the House Commerce Committee, and its Telecommunications Subcommittee, of which Tauzin is Chairman.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced H.R. 4018 on June 9, which is a separate bill that parallels the Rockefeller amendment.  Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), who is a member of the House Commerce Committee, is a cosponsor.