First, we are extremely concerned that this amendment goes farther than any existing proposal in establishing UCE as a legitimate method of marketing. This amendment legalizes any UCE that meets minimal standards for truthfulness in delivery, making this bill worse than staying with the status quo. This bill would legitimize an utterly unconscionable practice. No legitimate form of advertising forces the recipient to pay an out of pocket charge to receive advertising messages they did not ask for and invariably do not want. No legitimate form of advertising forces the deliverer to bear enormous out of pocket costs for processing, storing and delivering unsolicited advertising messages.
Junk email does both.
By contrast, every form of legitimate advertising imposes some marginal cost per message on the advertiser, creating a natural cap on the number and frequency of messages. Every form of advertising supports the media in which it is transmitted, thereby rendering the medium cheaper for all to use. Junk email imposes no marginal cost per message, creating perverse incentives for advertisers to flood the medium with mass solicitations. Second, we appreciate Senators Murkowski's and Torricelli's efforts to address the issue of fraudulent headers and fraudulent or nonexistent contact information. However, while large quantities of UCE today are delivered using fake header information and invalid return addresses, the requirement of a valid return address and valid headers doesn't provide a tremendous obstacle to most junk emailers.