Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, Thank you for your efforts to eliminate unwanted email. I receive almost 50 spam emails each day at the college where I am an Associate Vice President and I absolutely hate them. However, as an internet information publisher and small business person I am very concerned about the current rules being considered regarding suppression lists. There are too many problems associated with suppression lists and the costs to businesses and consumers will be incredible. Legitimate publishing businesses which do NOT spam, require consumers to provide their permission before being added to the publisher’s emailing list. If you review current effective and ethical internet publishing business models, you will determine that suppression lists will force legitimate and ethical publishers out of business. Consumers face significant harm if suppression lists are enacted in that they will not have access to the types of information they want and need because those publishers will go out of business. Also, the problem of not knowing the consumer’s intent when unsubscribing from a list confounds the difficulty for both consumers and publishers. Finally, any list – including possible suppression lists – run the risk of falling into the hands of spammers who will develop even more obnoxious spam to reach out to this “new market” of unsubscribing consumers collected into these convenient (convenient for spammers, that is) suppression lists. One of my responsibilities as a college administrator is to teach a college class on leadership each academic term. One component of this class on which I spend considerable time focuses on ethics. Part of ethical leadership regarding my internet publishing business is to treat my customers who wish to receive, or discontinue receiving, information form me with professionalism and respect. Another part of ethical leadership is to make decisions that result in their intended impact and which do not inadvertantly negatively impact those individuals or businesses for whom those decisions were not intended. Please review carefully the proposed rules on suppression lists so that your final decision has the intended impact of “canning spam” while at the same time, supporting responsible and ethical businesses and their customers. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Joseph M. Fischer, Ph.D. InfoScan Systems