The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a report telling Congress that, at the present time, a National Do Not Email Registry would fail to reduce the amount of spam consumers receive, might increase it, and could not be enforced effectively.

In December 2003, Congress passed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act). One provision in the legislation called for the FTC to develop a plan and timetable for establishing a National Do Not E-mail Registry. The report concludes that all three possible registry models it studied could not be enforced effectively. A registry of individual email addresses also suffers from severe security/privacy risks that would likely result in registered addresses receiving more spam because spammers would use such a registry as a directory of valid email addresses.

FTC announced that it will be sponsoring a Fall 2004 Authentication Summit to encourage a thorough analysis of possible authentication systems and their swift deployment.

The FTC’s report focuses only on the feasibility of the National Do Not Email Registry, and does not relieve anyone of their responsibility to comply with all provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.

FTC Announcement

Text of FTC Report to Congress (6/15/04)

June 15, 2004