| Comment Number: | OL-104371 |
| Received: | 4/16/2004 6:38:17 PM |
| Organization: | Self |
| Commenter: | Jon Buchwald |
| State: | CA |
| Agency: | Federal Trade Commission |
| Rule: | CAN-SPAM ANPR |
| Docket ID: | [3084-AA96] |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
You're missing some important issues. Most spammers provide links to websites in places like China and Eastern Europe (and recently, Latin America). In some cases, the sender is hired to transmit email on behalf of the advertising party. The Act should impose economic sanctions on countries that tolerate businesses that host spammers' websites, and should treat web hosting companies that refuse to shut down spammers' websites as spammers themselves. The Act should require licenses for web and email hosting companies, and require such companies to comply with anti-spamming laws by imposing a combination of civil fines and criminal penalties for the companies' management. There should be additional penalties for U.S. citizens who use non-US web hosting businesses to host websites that are advertised using spam. Sending porn spam to an email account that may result in the email being seen by a minor should be a criminal offense carrying mandatory fines and prison time. It should be a criminal offense for a U.S. citizen to hire any other party for the purpose of sending unsolicited commercial email, as well as for using an offshore server to initiate a mass-emailing (perhaps use some of the organized crime statutes as a model). You've got to hit the offshore component of spam hard, and make it costly for spammers to hide. Make spammers do hard prison time. I doubt that most will be able to take it. The thought of being locked up with a bunch of predators will frighten most spammers away from doing it. Thank you for your consideration.