America Online Endorses New Minnesota State Antispam Proposal That Seeks to Impose Harsh, New Penalties Against Spammers - Including Jail Time
Minnesota Proposal Continues AOL`s State-by-State Campaign to Enact Tough New Junk Email Laws Against `Kingpin` Spammers
DULLES, VA - Friday, March 19, 2004 - Sending junk email to online consumers in the State of Minnesota could result in stiff, criminal penalties if a new proposal - backed today by America Online - is enacted into law.
The world`s leading interactive services company today announced its support and advocacy for an important new antispam initiative in Minnesota that would complement AOL`s public policy efforts at the Federal level and in other states to fight back against spam and spammers on behalf of its members.
AOL is backing a strong new antispam proposal introduced just last week and authored by State Senator Dan Sparks (D-Austin). A companion bill has been introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives by State Rep. Eric Lipman (R-Lake Elmo). The bill is based on the nation`s toughest law against junk email in Virginia, where AOL is located. Co-authors of the measure are State Sen. Jim Metzen (D-South St. Paul), President of the Senate; and State Sen. Ellen Anderson (D-St. Paul), Chair of the Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee.
The newly introduced legislation, the "Minnesota Spam Control Act" (S.F. 2622/H.F. 2948), would impose tough criminal penalties against the most egregious spammers who use tactics of fraud and deceit to get spam into the email inboxes of online consumers. The bill creates misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor and felony levels of crime and imposes jail time and monetary penalties.
AOL`s support for this new proposal was announced in conjunction with today`s scheduled hearing in the Minnesota Senate Jobs, Energy and Economic Development Committee. America Online will be testifying on behalf of the bill.
"Tough, new state antispam proposals like the one being supported by AOL in Minnesota can have a tremendous impact as part of a comprehensive, multi-faceted effort that includes a combination of corporate litigation, online industry collaboration, new antispam technologies, enhanced tools and features placed at the fingertips of our members, and stronger spam filtering at the email server level," said Randall Boe, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of AOL.
Mr. Boe added: "If the `Minnesota Spam Control Act` is adopted - and we hope it will be in this session of the Legislature - it will be a significant and much needed, new weapon to `can-the-spam`, which all starts with our members referring spam to us using AOL`s `Report Spam` button."
Senator Dan Sparks, the Senate author, will be presenting the bill to the Jobs, Energy and Economic Development Committee today. After the hearing, the bill will be laid over for final passage on Friday, March 26. AOL has pledged to work with Senator Sparks to further refine and strengthen the bill as it is considered in the legislative process. The bill would next go to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"I am very pleased to be putting a significant new tool to deal with this enormous problem into the hands of prosecutors. Since one of the alleged `kingpin spammers` is reportedly located here in Minnesota, we can contribute to the national solution with this bill," said Sen. Sparks.
The legislation is timely and critical to AOL, and more directly to its millions of members nationwide - especially Minnesotans who use AOL`s service. Under this new law, spammers sending large volumes of junk emails using tactics of fraud, deceit and evasion to members of AOL in the state would be subject to severe sanctions and damages.
If enacted, the Minnesota Spam Control Act would work hand-in-hand with the tough criminal provisions of the new Federal law - the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act - which AOL strongly endorsed. It would also give Minnesota residents and officials added enforcement tools to combat spam with criminal and civil penalties. The Minnesota junk email proposal was also crafted and structured in a way that would allow it not to be pre-empted by the new federal antispam law.
The Minnesota junk email proposal is an updated version of Virginia`s antispam state law, which went into effect on July 1st, 2003, and has already been successfully used by state law enforcement officials to file criminal prosecutions against two spammers widely-known to industry groups and ISPs. This took place in December 2003, when AOL joined with Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore to announce the arrests of two North Carolina individuals accused of spamming AOL members, using the new state law.
Also, in late January, AOL joined in announcing the introduction of a new state antispam proposal in Ohio, H.B. 383, which closely matches both the existing Virginia junk email statute, as well as the new Minnesota proposal being supported today. The proposal is authored by State Representative Kathleen Walcher (R), and is pending consideration in the Ohio Legislature this session. In early March, in Maryland, AOL announced its support of an almost identical antispam bill introduced by Delegate Neil Quinter (D) and Senator Robert Garagiola (D), called the Maryland Spam Control Act" (H.B. 1320/S.B. 604) - which is also pending consideration in the Maryland General Assembly.
AOL continues to be an industry leader in the ongoing an aggressive fight on a state and Federal level to craft and adopt tough, rigorous new public laws that hold spammers accountable for their outlaw tactics of deceit, fraud and evasion. Just last week, AOL joined its industry partners Microsoft, Earthlink and Yahoo! to announce the first major industry lawsuits against hundreds of spammers using the new federal CAN-SPAM law that went into effect on Jan 1st, 2004.
In addition to its public advocacy campaigns on spam in Virginia and in the U.S. Congress - which produced milestone victories on behalf of its members and all online consumers in 2003 - AOL continues to work with lawmakers in other states toward the goal of ensuring that public laws evolve to keep pace with the ever-changing, complex nature of spam.
About America Online, Inc.
America Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world`s leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.
Contact:
Nicholas J. Graham
America Online
703-265-1746
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