One to One Interactive joins industry leaders to brief Congress on e-mail spam/privacy Legislation

On March 13th, Jeremi Karnell, Founding Partner & CMO of One to One Interactive joined a select group of delegates from Visa, Fleet Bank, ACTV, Unica Corp, Bigfoot Interactive, Return Path, and the EPrivacy Group in Washington, DC, to participate in the Association of Interactive Marketing’s (AIM) 4th Annual Capitol Hill Day. The delegation spent the day briefing members of Congress and their staff on current legislation regarding e-mail spam/privacy.

One of the main objectives of the delegation was to lend support for a National e-mail law that would preempt the 18 laws currently on the books in 16 different states regulating the use of commercial e-mail and SPAM. AIM’s position is that legitimate opt-in e-mail marketers are finding it difficult and costly to comply with the various state regulations. The association feels that the Federal government needs to step in to create one legal standard that would protect consumers nationwide from unsolicited commercial e-mail while at the same time make it easy for legitimate marketers to communicate with their opt-in e-mail prospects and customers.

The delegation also discovered that Senator Fritz Hollings is planning on introducing another major online privacy bill and that there is a general 'privacy outline' being distributed by Rep. Stearns that may carry some momentum across different privacy issues. The momentum for a 'privacy commission' has also subsided since the principal sponsor for that bill is no longer in office.

Unfortunately, it does not look as if any national e-mail or broad-sweeping online privacy bills will pass during this session, as Congress has been focused on national security and defense in the wake of September 11th.

Below is the list of Congressional staff members that the delegation met with:

• Rep. Chip Pickering (senior member of House Telecommunications Committee)
• Tad Furtado, LD, with Rep. Charlie Bass (On Commerce Committee)
• Regarding: Rep. Gene Green, who introduced HR 95, Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001' http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/hr95.html
• Rep. Steve Chabot (senior member of House Judiciary Committee)
• Rep. Jerry Nadler (senior member of House Judiciary Committee)
• Staffer with Rep. Bob Goodlatte, introduced HR 1017 Anti-Spamming Act http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/hr1017.html
• Wally Shoe with Sen. Gordon Smith (senior member on Senate Commerce Committee)
• Lisa Rosenberg, Counsel to Senate Commerce Committee (Reporting to Sen. John Kerry)
• Roger Brown with Sen. Wayne Allard
• Mark Dedrick with Rep. Rush Holt, introduced HR 113 Wireless Telephone Spamming Act http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/hr113.html
• David Rush with Rep. Chris Smith: introduced HR 3146, 'Netizens Protection Act of 2001' http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/hr3146.html

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