Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I agree that there is too much unsolicited bulk email and appreciate your work to establish some guidelines and limits. I have some concerns about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. This act would create considerable cost, time commitment, and potential for communication glitches especially for small service oriented businesses. Please consider this matter carefully. Requiring the use of suppression lists will seriously harm legitimate publications available on the net, those who require permission from the consumer prior to adding them to any list. They're not the ones who CAN-SPAM was designed to put out of business, but this requirement will very likely have that effect. There's also the potential for significant harm to Consumers. Keeping the names of those who opt out feels like an ethical violation and sharing a suppression list violates the promise to not share their names with anyone else. On top of that, suppression lists could fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam instead of less. There are many potential problems with this Ruling. I encourage you to find ways to deal with these issues that won’t create hardship on small businesses that rely on ezines and newsletters to provide legitimate and requested information as well as offer recommendations and affiliate links. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems, Respectfully, Marcy Nelson-Garrison Minnesota, USA