Today , the Federal Trade Commission denied the joint petition filed by the Telecommunications Research & Action Center (TRAC), National Consumers League (NCL) and Consumer Action to curb the epidemic of unsolicited commercial email. Citing limited time and resources, the Commission has decided to maintain their current enforcement efforts and work with the public to explore solutions to the deluge of spam.

"TRAC is disappointed that the FTC rejected our petition, and feels it was within their jurisdiction to take action. We will be glad to work with the Commission in the future, and would be pleased if they would take more aggressive enforcement action based on the criteria in our petition," said Dirck A. Hargraves, Counsel, TRAC.

In their joint petition -- filed September 2002 -- TRAC, NCL and Consumer Action called on the FTC to initiate a rule making to classify unsolicited commercial email as an "unfair and deceptive" trade practice under the Federal Trade Act. Additionally, the proposed rule would prohibit email that misrepresents the source, sender, subject, or does not give consumers a reliable opt-out. While conceding that the proliferation of unsolicited commercial email is an important consumer concern, the Commission assessed the benefits of the groups' joint petition are outweighed by the significant time and resource a rule making would require.

"We are concerned that consumers are drowning in fraudulent and unwanted email and that the Commission does not share our sense of urgency," said Ken McEldowney, Executive Director, Consumer Action. "Something needs to be done. Hopefully Congress can step in, where appropriate, and provide consumers with laws that offer greater protection than what is currently available. We look forward to participating in future debate."

Carol McKay, spokesperson for the National Consumers League, remained optimistic that the groups and the FTC could collaborate to stem the tide of spam, but noted, "Spam knows no geographical boundaries. Because American consumers are flooded with junk mail that originates from places all around the globe, the Commission should ensure that any effort to curtail spam's pervasiveness be international in scope."

Since September, more than 4150 consumers submitted spam "horror stories" to the Ban the Spam site. We thank those who have contributed, and continue to invite others to share their stories as we will forward the permissible information on to staff at the FTC.

About NCL
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America's pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to identify, protect, represent, and advance the economic and social interests of consumers and workers. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit http://www.nclnet.org.

About Consumer Action
Founded in 1971, the San Francisco-based Consumer Action is a non-profit, membership-based organization that serves consumers nationwide by advancing consumer rights. CA is available on the Web at http://www.consumer-action.org.

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MEDIA CONTACT:

John Breyault, TRAC, johnb@trac.org, 202-263-2943

ABOUT TRAC:

The Telecommunications Research and Action Center (TRAC), founded in 1983, is a non-profit membership organization based in Washington, DC that promotes the interests of residential telecommunications customers. TRAC staff researches telecommunications issues and publishes rate comparisons to help consumers make informed decisions regarding their long distance and local phone service options. TRAC can be found on the web at http://www.trac.org.