What Is Spam, And What Is The Anti-Spam Law?
Spam is unsolicited, noncompensated commercial electronic mail sent in bulk that is usually fraudulent or deceptive in nature. On December 16, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Controlling the Assault of NonSolicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CANSPAM Act), which establishes a framework of administrative, civil, and criminal tools to help consumers, businesses, and families combat unsolicited commercial email. This law requires all commercial email messages to be identified as such and include an “optout” for recipients, prohibits commercial email that contains fraudulent headers or sexually explicit material, prohibits commercial email sent to addresses via an automated directory mechanism, and subjects civil and criminal penalties upon senders (spammers) who violate these terms.
