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December 16, 2003 -- By Roy Mark -- InternetNews

President George W. Bush signed a landmark anti-spam bill into law Tuesday, setting into motion the first national standards for sending bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE).

The law becomes effective Jan. 1, 2004.

Pre-empting many tougher state anti-spam laws, the Can Spam Act aims to curb the most egregious practices of spammers by targeting e-mail with falsified headers, but allows e-marketers to send UCE as long as the message contains an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return e-mail address, a valid subject line indicating the e-mail is an advertisement and the legitimate physical address of the mailer.

The new law makes it a misdemeanor crime subject to up to one year in jail for intentionally sending UCE with falsified header information and sets out civil penalties for a host of other common spamming practices used to obtain e-mail addresses, including harvesting, dictionary attacks and spoofing.

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