BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1676
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 1676 (Bowen)
As Amended August 20, 1998
Majority vote
ASSEMBLY: 62-13 (May 18, 1998) SENATE: 38-0 (August 27, 1998)
Original Committee Reference: CONPRO
SUMMARY : Prohibits unsolicited commercial e-mail, which is
commonly referred to as spam or junk e-mail.
The Senate amendments :
1) Clarify that the measure applies only to unsolicited
commercial e-mail originating in and sent to residents of
California.
2) Delete the infraction fine authority and instead apply
existing law's general misdemeanor penalty of $1,000 and/or
imprisonment for violations of general advertising law.
3) State that the measure will become inoperative if a
federal law on this subject is enacted.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill:
1) Prohibited the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail
to a recipient if the recipient has notified the sender to cease.
2) Prohibited any person or entity conducting business in
the state from sending unsolicited advertising material via e-mail
unless the person or entity establishes a toll-free telephone
number for individuals to call to notify the sender not to send
any further unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
3) Made it an infraction, punishable by a fine of $250, for
each and every transmission sent in violation of the bill's
prohibitions, including unsolicited faxed documents.
4) Protected Internet service providers (ISPs) from
liability against spamming claims if ISPs merely carry e-mail
transmissions over their networks.
5) Required unsolicited commercial e-mail to be labeled as
an advertisement or, if applicable, as containing adult material.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS :
1) According to the author's office, this measure is
intended to prevent spam, the junk mail of the Information Age.
This bill seeks to accomplish this by giving individual consumers
AB 1676
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the right to opt-out of spam distribution lists and fining
individuals who do not comply with consumers' wishes.
Supporters argue that Internet users face a daily
onslaught of unsolicited e-mail from Internet businesses
advertising goods and services. Known as spamming, the practice
of sending mass e-mails often imposes a significant time burden on
Internet users and often can slow down or disrupt on-line service,
which eventually imposes a financial cost on individual consumers.
2) This bill is modeled on the state's existing junk fax
law, which allows individuals to opt-out of receiving unsolicited
advertising via fax and imposes a $500 fine for each violation [AB
2438, (Katz), Chapter 564, Statutes of 1992]. However, as amended
at the request of the California District Attorneys Association,
the measure now eliminates existing law's fine infraction
authority in favor of the existing misdemeanor penalties for
general advertising violations.
3) AB 1629 (Miller), pending on the Assembly Floor, is also
an anti-spamming bill. AB 1629 takes a different approach to the
junk e-mail problem by: a) allowing ISPs to recover damages from
spammers, and b) protecting domain names, which are the address
paths used to transmit e-mail via the Internet. AB 1629 appears to
be complementary to this measure.
4) Opponents of this bill claim that it may be an
unconstitutional infringement on free speech and that any
government regulation of the Internet may have a dampening effect
on Internet commerce.
Additionally, some opponents argue that the e-mail
labeling requirement is an unreasonable and unworkable burden on
both Internet service providers and all legitimate e-mail users.
Analysis prepared by : Sailaja Cherukuri / aconpro / (916)
319-2089
FN 043448