• ANA Blog, Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:15 PM

The Association of National Advertisers is gearing up for a fight against several states where legislation requiring e-mail registry programs and so-called "do-not-e-mail" lists for kids has been proposed. Writing in his ANA blog, the association's Washington representative Dan Jaffe characterized the registry programs as unconstitutional on both First Amendment and commerce clause grounds. States including Connecticut, Iowa, Georgia, and Hawaii are currently considering such proposals, and Michigan and Utah have already implemented registry programs. The legislation would create e-mail registries where parents can register "contact points" to which children have access. Jaffe said that, if enacted, "marketers of age-restricted products would have to scrub their mailing lists on a frequent basis against the registry to avoid sending their advertising to these contact points." He pointed out that similar legislation was proposed in Illinois but abandoned after the Federal Trade Commission advised the legislature that this type of registry would end up putting children in danger rather than protecting them, should the list fall into the wrong hands. Jaffe said he believed that all of the legislation is preempted by the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

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