Protecting Our Interests?

That's highly unlikely.

The CANSPAM act is exactly that - it allows for spam. All it requires is that an unsubscribe link be posted in an e-mail. It doesn't require that it will have to unsubscribe you, or not subscribe you to another list. Oh no, not at all.

So instead of passing legislation that does something good, they simply legalized spam.

It was really a poor law.

Instead, they need to make a requirement, or allow the market to shift. See, one thing I've noticed, especially lately with the internet where a lot more grassroots organizations are able to spring up, is that the market can shift pretty quickly. What we need is a market shift, and if anything, the law needs to reflect said shift. This is how it should work - for personal e-mail that don't advertise anything, you don't have to register with any type of service. For any type of commercial or mass mailing you are required to register your address. Something along the lines of verisign or something - ya know, the ones who make sure your credit card info stays between you and your merchant? Well they would verify commercial/mass e-mail providers to make sure they're legitimate. Those people must be identifiable. Well, unless it's some sort of anonymous type people - the conspiracy theorists. But then again, they'd have ways to get around it anyway.

So these commercial e-mails would have to pass a verification to be sent. The sender would set up a schedule - once a week on Mondays, or once a month on the first Thursday. Something to that effect.

Of course some people are horrid with deadlines and what not or a random occurrence happens where they need to send out an e-mail outside their usual time frame. Well here's how you can take care of that: For people who know that they're horrid about scheduling, you could have perhaps one day either forward or back (or both) leeway. For the random occasion that they need to send an e-mail on an off day, they have ONE extra e-mail a month (I've rarely seen even so high as that). When they send an e-mail, it asks if they really want to send it on an off day. If they say yes, it really sends it. Let's say though, perhaps they want to send another e-mail. Well, what they then do is this: A confirmation e-mail is sent back to them with a random key that was generated. Then they have a phone number (possibly 1-800? or even something on Skype perhaps) to call. When they call the number they provide THEIR personal identity - much like when you call a bank - and then provide the random key they received. They then have to confirm again that they wanted to and meant to send the e-mail. They could, perhaps, have a limit of three extraneous e-mails per month, and if they need any more than that... well, I don't foresee any time they would need to do that.

Hmmm... now that I think about this... and the more I do...

I think I may just start a company that does this very thing.

And if you see it somewhere else, remember you saw it here first!