Although consent for the use of electronic transactions is streamlined, and may already be automated by using standard browsers, vendors apparently found this is too onerous. The ability to give consent, the sole new consumer protection of the Act, is not a strong protection. The contractual and consent provisions assume the parties' ability to identify and communicate with each other. Many customers don't want to be contacted electronically, using fake email addresses for registration. These consumers prefer not to receive future promotional spam from the vendor.
Many vendors sell email addresses to others proliferating spam.
An unintended side effect of the accuracy provisions is that spam marketeers might be required to use accurate return addresses for commercial messages. This could aid in filtering and prosecution for violations of acceptable use policies. Privacy protections were present in earlier versions, but were removed in the final version. Congressional staff indicate that privacy itself is too big an issue, to be decided at a later time. Consumer and privacy advocates should oppose final adoption of this Act.