Comments:

Regarding Forward to a Friend: if the advertiser featured is inducing recipients to forward the message in exchange for some sort of consideration (i.e., forward to 10 friends, get 10 percent off or 10 bonus points, etc.) then it should fall under the Act, with the advertiser being the initiator of record. I believe that the National Do Not Email Registry is a huge mistake and liability if it is created. The legitimate spammers would use this as a lead list, and it would do nothing to curb the volume of spam being sent. Use your resources to more aggressively hunt down and punish those who spam. In terms of identifying the spammers, most of the messages that they send feature a link to some commercial product or service. Are they promoting a particular product or service for free out of the goodness of their hearts, or are they being induced to do so by those whose products or services they are promoting? In other words, why not go after those who are featured in the spam messages? With the exception of adult-oriented content, I think that subject line labeling is a bad idea. Again, the legitimate e-mail marketers would comply, recipients would tailor their e-mail preferences to remove any message with the prescribed subject line language, and the spammers will continue to ignore the statuate and spam will continue to rise. This is a lose-lose situation.