Congress has passed and sent to President Bush legislation that would makes it unlawful to send unsolicited commercial e-mails, commonly referred to as "spam." The CAN-SPAM Act - which stands for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing" - passed the House 392-5 and the Senate by voice vote. Violations could lead to a maximum of five years in prison, and up to $6 million in fines and damages. The legislation authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do-not-spam list, similar to the agency's do-not-call registry of telephone numbers that marketers are not supposed to call. The legislation preempts all existing state spam laws, including the California anti-spam law passed earlier this year.

A prominent research firm says the CAN-SPAM can't stop unwanted email. Jim Nail, senior analyst at Forrester Research, said the legislation is not going to have any effect. Nail says charging people to send email messages would stop spammers cold. He proposes using a credit-card system whereby e-mailers must have a verifiable identity before they can send something.