Comments:

To the Commissioners, I would like to thank you for your dilligence and efforts to curb the problem of unsolicited bulk email. However, as a stay-at-home father who builds his business via the Internet, I am concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. There are so many problems and costs associated with this idea, and so much damage done to consumers and businesses alike, that I feel I must urge you to consider this matter most carefully. Requirement of the use of suppression lists will seriously damage many of the legitimate publications available on the net. My specific concern is for harm to publishers who require permission from the consumer prior to adding them to any list. These publishers are not who the CAN-SPAM act was designed to stop. Unfortunately, this requirement will very likely have a deleterious effect on their business nonetheless. There's also the potential for significant harm to consumers, because of the problem of properly knowing their intent when they unsubscribe from a list. On top of that, these suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam instead of less. While I certainly applaud and support the efforts of anyone aiming to enforce some measure of structure and establish some standards for email marketing, after considering the impact of CAN-SPAM, I was quite surprised at the potential problems this ruling could involve. Therefore, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems and the potentially devastating impact that they could have on honest, online marketers such as myself. Respectfully, Kyle Gabhart Fort Worth, TX, USA