Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, While I'm glad to hear our Government is trying to improve the problems of unsolicted bulk email, some of the things I've been reading here seem extremely confusing and very difficult to comprehend. (Little alone implement.) I've read over this several times now, and honestly, I'm just as confused now as I was the first time I read about it several weeks ago. I wish the solution you were offering could be so simple that even a 13 year old could understand. (But that's Government for you I guess.) I thought this proprosal was suppose to help kill SPAM (the BAD guys)... not potentially ruin or destroy optin email that legitimate businesses use. I hope you keep that in mind as you're passing this bill. Frankly, I am very concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. My understanding is that each person or program is or would be required to create and maintain a single "do not email list" for their products and services and use that list to clean or "scrub" their email lists. That in and of itself seems perplexing to me. And then they must ensure that every emailer, partner, affiliate and others that send email promoting their products and services have access to and adhere to the "do not email" list or suffer the consequences? Do you realize how confusing and overwhelming this sounds to me? There's got to be an easier way... If that idea goes through and it's what I think it is, do you realize what a nightmare all this would be for small businesses and how expensive that would make it for the average person? It could destroy opt-in email marketing and the small business owner in a way that was never thought of. It just seems to me like things that were *suppose* to stop spammers always ends up hurting or destroying the NONSPAMMERS instead... (you know the GOOD guys.) And with all the problems and costs associated with this idea, I fear it's going to cause damage to both consumers AND businesses so much that I feel I must urge you to consider this matter VERY CAREFULLY because the wrong choice has the potential to ruin TONS of online businesses and legitimate email marking as we know it. If you require suppression lists the way its stated and an overwhelming multi step process for everyone to implement, that's only going to make things worse than it already is because it's way too hard and confusing for the average person to understand. I strongly feel that the solution should be kept as simple as possible. (You know K.I.S.S.) Why? Because the more confusing you make something sound, the harder it is to understand or do. CAN-SPAM should be created to put SPAMMERS out of business, not accidentally put legitimate businesses who are doing everything possible to follow the law out of business. But I'm afraid that's what's going to end up happening. It's not just publishers I'm worried about getting harmed by this though. It's the significant potential harm to consumers as well from the problem of properly knowing their intent when they unsubscribe from a list. Here's the worst part... These suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers. And guess what? Then there'd be EVEN MORE spam... not less. How? Because they'd have huge suppression lists to easily access and make it easier to upload to their server. (And you know they would probably do it to and figure out how to remain in stealth mode and anonymous.) Bottom Line: I was quite surprised at the potential problems this ruling could involve and because of all these potential problems, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to please, please, please reconsider how you implement all this. Sincerely, Mark Shroyer Iowa, USA