• April 14, 2004

On Tuesday, three leading Internet trade organizations spoke out against the concept of a Do-Not-Email (DNE) registry, currently being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. The Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and TRUSTe, which jointly represent a combined membership of over 1,500 industry leaders, contend that a DNE registry will not materially reduce the amount of spam plaguing consumers and will burden the senders of legitimate email.

The groups maintain that various technological challenges will make a DNE Registry impossible to enforce, prohibitively expensive, and difficult to secure. At the same time, they say that a DNE registry would impede the growth of e-commerce, confuse consumers, and even provide a rich source of valid email addresses for spammers and hackers to target.