Comments:

I have developed electronic security measures for companies for 10 years. I have contributed to communications specifications including Internet specifications, and I understand the intent of the can-spam Act. I have traced the source of spam emails and found that much of the spam email received by me and by people who ask me to eliminate it from their electronic mail boxes comes from email servers lying outside the boundaries of the US. Many of the emails detail offshore purchase methods. My professional opinion is that an Act by the US can prevent neither the emails coming into the US from offshore, nor the purchase of offshore goods and services resulting from these emails. And I believe US law has no bearing on the laws of other countries, so these offshore sources of emails and business transactions will not have to comply with any US law. Should an act such as this one be put in place, it will serve to cause more US jobs to go offshore. Companies wishing to promote their goods and services will simply create offshore divisions or shells, hiring non-US residents, and move their marketing and sales operations offshore. We have already seen this trend in the high-tech industry for the reason of cost-cutting, but with this act, this trend will be reinforced because it will be the only way to spam-market goods and services. And you see this trend already starting even now, because many of the spam emails received have been written by non-native english composers, likely written off-shore. The final comment is that to create a registry of email names and addresses will provide a source for offshore spammers to very easily get all the legitamate addresses they could ever want. As we know, it will be impossible to keep such a list secret for very long, since it must be made available to legitamate marketing organizations, and could very easily be sold or otherwise transported to non-legitimate organizations. Thanks, and Best regards Jim Busse