July 18, 2000

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this very important consumer protection measure. My congratulations go to Representatives Green and Wilson, who together have crafted a solution to this insidious problem on the Internet known as "spam."

Spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail, is no longer a mere nuisance to the 40 million Americans who use the Internet. It has rapidly become an abusive practice whereby innocent users are bombarded with commercial messages over which they have no control.

Worse, the content of these messages is often pornographic. So-called "teaser" images often appear out of nowhere, inviting the recipient to visit one adult site on the Web or another. For many people, especially families who share a computer, these spam messages are more than an intrusion, they are a personal assault.

Spam also imposes real economic costs on Internet users. Many consumers, particularly in rural areas, pay long distance charges when connecting to the Internet. The time spent downloading these unwanted messages translates into real dollars and cents paid by the consumer. And, of course, the slower the Internet connection, the greater the tab.

The consumer also pays for spam through higher costs incurred by Internet Service Providers, or "ISPs." The exponential growth in spam leaves ISPs with no choice but to expand their server capacity to accommodate the heavier traffic. These investments pose a significant, but unavoidable, burden on ISPs that many must pass along to consumers.

H.R. 3113 is a common-sense approach that will go far to putting an end to this practice. First, it permits an ISP to legally enforce its own policy with regard to whether it will accept spam or not. This protects ISPs and consumers alike. Second, it allows consumers to opt-out of receiving spam from individual senders. And finally, it empowers consumers to "just say no" to receiving future messages from a particular company when he or she has had enough.