Spam Newsroom

President Bush Signed Into Law CAN-SPAM ACT

On December 16, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act)

The law builds upon the Administration's efforts to empower consumers with choices in the technology field. Under the law, consumers are provided with a choice not to receive any further unsolicited messages from a sender. Senders that do not honor a consumer's request are subject to civil penalties.

The law strengthens a cornerstone of the Administration's agenda to help protect children against pornography. The law makes spam containing unmarked sexually-oriented material a criminal offense. The labeling requirement gives parents a tool to protect their children from such messages. Under the law, senders of e-mail are required to place warning labels on messages containing sexually-oriented or pornographic material. If they knowingly violate this requirement, spammers are subject to fines or imprisonment. 

The Administration supports the law's tools to help deter the harmful effects of deceptive and misleading spam. The law establishes both civil and criminal prohibitions to deter spammers from using false or misleading identification, and imposes penalties against spammers for these violations.