Microsoft takes spam plan to Washington

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates weighed in on the spam debate for a congressional hearing Wednesday, outlining in a letter the legal measures he believes are necessary to stop junk e-mail. "The torrent of unwanted, unsolicited, often offensive and sometimes fraudulent e-mail is eroding trust in technology, costing business billions of dollars a year, and decreasing our collective ability to realize technology's full potential," Gates wrote to Sens. John McCain and Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Gates said a multifaceted approach, including industry self-regulation and legislation, are needed to lessen the scourge of junk e-mail.

Specifically, he proposed that Congress back a "trusted seal" program that would require senders to identify themselves and adhere to a set of industry guidelines, or else have their e-mail filtered. The concept has been discussed before, but Microsoft's plan would allow marketers that abide by the rules to get around using an "ADV" (short for advertisement) tag within a message's subject line. Use of the tag is a common tenet of many state laws and bills. Wednesday's hearing included testimony from the likes of America Online, the Network Advertising Initiative and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The hearing furthered discussions that had begun at a three-day congressional summit on spam in April. It also reinforced a government mandate to pass some kind of spam law that makes sense for consumers and Internet players.

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