Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I understand that for some people SPAM is not only annoying, but also a problem when they use only one e-mail address for all of their online communications and the majority of their e-mails are unsolicited junk mail “SPAM”. I was glad to see steps taken by the CAN-SPAM Act to curb SPAM. I know that the internet vendors I do business with have taken this Act seriously and employed the double OPT-IN system to insure that their subscribers really intended to receive communications from them. I think that the double OPT-IN system is a great safe guard against SPAM. However, I am concerned about the proposed requirement for legitimate merchants to maintain a suppression list when sending their subscribers an e-mail or newsletter. I believe that such a list procedure would ultimately harm the consumer. For the past seven years I have made several purchases over the internet. Most of the items I have purchased you can not even find in a retail store. I came across most of the products by recommendations from internet vendors and or their affiliates. Recently I was looking for a software product. I did some searching and found three companies who offered a product that may serve my needs. I joined their newsletters to obtain more information about the company and their products. One company was just not right for me and I OPTED OUT of their newsletter. The other two I was still undecided on. A few weeks later I received a newsletter from an affiliate salesperson that represents many online vendors. I have always enjoyed his newsletter and look forward to receiving it! The topic of his newsletter was a review on the type of software I was recently looking for. The review was very well done, giving the Pros and Cons of each vendor’s software. One of the companies in the review I never heard of, the others I had. In fact, one of the companies was the newsletter I OPTED-OUT from. As it turns out, the company I had never heard of was offering just the product that I was looking for and I made my purchase through the affiliate’s link. I am very pleased with my purchase and I’m grateful for the wonderful service the affiliate provided me with via his newsletter. Here is my problem with a suppression lists, I would have never received this newsletter since I OPTED-OUT from one of the vendors he was reviewing. Never receiving the newsletter would have prevented me from gaining his opinion on the various products. I would also have never found out about the company that was offering the product that was right for me. I’m afraid that suppression lists procedures will only stop legitimate vendors from offering their services over the internet. The companies who send SPAN have no regard for the laws in the first place. They are only out to make a fast buck and move on. Such an Act will only harm both the consumer and the companies who abide by the laws. While SPAM s a problem for some, a greater problem in my opinion is the unauthorized and unsolicited use of SPYWARE. I would like to see measures taken by the FTC to stop SPYWARE. Why should we allow companies to download software onto our computer without our knowledge? It should be illegal for a company to be able to track computer usage, surfing habits and keystrokes without the consent of the computer owner. As for SPAM, I would like to offer the steps I have taken personally to insure that I receive very little SPAM and I encourage the FTC to offer the below procedure as a suggestion or guideline to anyone who is online. • First, I have a private e-mail for only my business and I give this address out to only business associates. I receive no SPAM to this inbox by being judicious to whom I extend this address to. • Secondly, I have a personal e-mail address at Yahoo. I use their SPAM filter system, and I give out this e-mail address to family, friends and Internet Merchants who I do business with and want to receive on going communication from. I only receive 1 to 2 SPAM messages a week to this address, which tells me that the address was randomly generated and not sold off by the merchants. • Lastly, I have a third Yahoo account and I use this address as a throwaway account. I give this e-mail address when I surf the internet looking for information that requires I give an address. Once again the Yahoo filter catches the majority of SPAM and places it in a separate folder. If the address becomes too filled with SPAM, I just close it out and open a new one. I should add that I have yet had to do this. Respectfully, Tom Mikus Naperville, Illinois USA