Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I am seriously concerned about the effect of the CAN-SPAM act on small/home businesses. Since Spammers are the real target, why are legitimate business emailers being punished? The actions proposed could literally bankrupt a small business. Government is supposed to encourage, not bankrupt small businesses. The Act requiring an OPT-OUT button in every email should be sufficient to stop further SPAM contacts after the initial email is received. The Double OPT-IN requirement becoming MANDATORY would be an excellent addition. I suggest that the FTC publish the means of tracing the origin of an email back to the ISP. We can then contact them and you with the information regarding a Spammer who does not include an OPT-OUT button, or use a legitimate email address to enable a reply. My son has done this several times already and the ISPs have cut off service to offenders. This is a proper method of punishing the REAL offenders without harming legitimate business emailers. I am concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists due to the extra technology, work and costs to accomplish this. The above suggestions should make such lists unnecessary. The OPT-OUT option should be expanded to include a response from the customer as to WHAT he wants to opt out of and why. This would negate the requirement of legitimate business emailers needing to somehow contact everyone who might advertise their products or WEB sites, since each person advertising would recive an opt-out from the customer. I do not think that this is asking too much of a prospective customer. Suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam instead of less. I was quite surprised at the potential problems this ruling could involve, and urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems and to seriously consider my alternative suggestions. Respectfully, Al McFarlane British Columbia Canada