WASHINGTON — President Bush signed legislation Tuesday aimed at reducing spam, the annoying commercial messages that have been jamming electronic mailboxes.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 imposes fines and prison terms on spammers who harvest e-mail addresses from the Internet or use false information in the subject line to deceive recipients.
Starting Jan. 1, consumers who receive banned e-mail will be urged to contact the Federal Trade Commission, which is being spurred by Congress to enforce the law aggressively.
The 117 million Americans who use e-mail have grown increasingly angry about the tidal wave of unwanted messages, commonly called spam. Business owners also have been complaining about having workers' time and computer resources tied up by messages touting pornography, get-rich-quick schemes and pills.
"It costs U.S. businesses," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It has become a big burden on consumers."
Some consumer groups object to the new law because it supersedes tougher state laws, such as the one passed recently in California. And many technology experts question whether the law will be effective in curbing spam from other countries.
Still, the legislation won nearly unanimous support in Congress, as well as the blessing of the White House.
Bush signed the bill at a private ceremony in the Oval Office, where he was joined by lawmakers who drafted the legislation and executives from Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, EarthLink Inc. and eBay Inc.
Garry Betty, chief executive officer of EarthLink, the Atlanta-based Internet service provider, said in an interview after the signing that the new law will reduce spam.
By including criminal penalties, "it provides teeth," Betty said. "It gives you a federal statute to provide some consistency about how you can go after spammers."
For years, Internet service providers have been fighting spam with software filters and lawsuits. For example, in May, EarthLink won a $16.4 million judgment against Howard Carmack, known as the "Buffalo Spammer," and shut down his operation, which had generated more than 825 million spam e-mails. --> But the threat of jail time will be an even better deterrent than lawsuits, Betty predicted.
Many spammer techniques "are against the law now," he said.
After several years of failed attempts to work out legislation, Congress gave its final approval this month.
The new law authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to establish a national do-not-spam registry, if it would be technologically feasible.
The law also:
— Prohibits sending spam that falsifies the source, destination or routing information.
Bans spammers from harvesting addresses off Web sites.
Requires commercial e-mail senders to include their physical address.
Imposes both civil and criminal penalties on violators.
Requires the FTC to study whether commercial e-mails can be labeled as advertising to make it easier to set filters to block spam.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., who helped write the legislation, predicted the worst of "the crippling congestion" caused by spam will soon come to an end. "This new law will end all of that nonsense and bring peace of mind back to everyone who sends and receives e-mail," he said.
But Howard Beales, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, cautioned that consumers should not expect an overnight cessation of spam.
The legislation provided law enforcement officials with "some potentially useful new tools," Beales told a group of reporters. "We'll do our best to make use of them and incorporate them into our arsenal. But it's going to take consumer education. It's going to take technological change to address this problem. The legislation is not a cure-all."
The American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers and the Direct Marketing Association, the three largest advertising trade associations, issued a statement praising the new law.
But they criticized the provision that could open the door to the creation of a do-not-spam registry, saying such a list would impede the use of legitimate commercial messages.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who fought to include the registry provision, disagreed and promised to monitor the FTC's feasibility study. "We will be vigilant to make sure that the no-spam registry is adopted by the FTC, and if they refuse, we believe Congress will move the legislation forward," he said in a statement.