Title 15 — Commerce and TradeRelease 119-73
§7701 Congressional findings and policy
Title 15 › Chapter CHAPTER 103— - CONTROLLING THE ASSAULT OF NON-SOLICITED PORNOGRAPHY AND MARKETING › § 7701
Summary
Creates national rules for commercial email. It says the government must regulate commercial email across the country. Senders must not lie about who sent a message or what it contains. People who get commercial email must be able to refuse more messages from the same sender. Congress found that email is very important and used by millions every day. Unwanted commercial email has grown fast and now makes up over half of all email, up from 7 percent in 2001. Much of it is deceptive or fraudulent. It costs people time and storage and can hide wanted messages. Some messages are offensive. Internet providers, businesses, schools, and charities face extra costs and capacity limits. Many senders hide where messages come from, use misleading subject lines, ignore opt-out requests, or gather addresses automatically. State laws vary, and solving the problem will also need technology and international cooperation.
Full Legal Text
Title 15, §7701
Commerce and Trade — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
(a)The Congress finds the following:
(1)Electronic mail has become an extremely important and popular means of communication, relied on by millions of Americans on a daily basis for personal and commercial purposes. Its low cost and global reach make it extremely convenient and efficient, and offer unique opportunities for the development and growth of frictionless commerce.
(2)The convenience and efficiency of electronic mail are threatened by the extremely rapid growth in the volume of unsolicited commercial electronic mail. Unsolicited commercial electronic mail is currently estimated to account for over half of all electronic mail traffic, up from an estimated 7 percent in 2001, and the volume continues to rise. Most of these messages are fraudulent or deceptive in one or more respects.
(3)The receipt of unsolicited commercial electronic mail may result in costs to recipients who cannot refuse to accept such mail and who incur costs for the storage of such mail, or for the time spent accessing, reviewing, and discarding such mail, or for both.
(4)The receipt of a large number of unwanted messages also decreases the convenience of electronic mail and creates a risk that wanted electronic mail messages, both commercial and noncommercial, will be lost, overlooked, or discarded amidst the larger volume of unwanted messages, thus reducing the reliability and usefulness of electronic mail to the recipient.
(5)Some commercial electronic mail contains material that many recipients may consider vulgar or pornographic in nature.
(6)The growth in unsolicited commercial electronic mail imposes significant monetary costs on providers of Internet access services, businesses, and educational and nonprofit institutions that carry and receive such mail, as there is a finite volume of mail that such providers, businesses, and institutions can handle without further investment in infrastructure.
(7)Many senders of unsolicited commercial electronic mail purposefully disguise the source of such mail.
(8)Many senders of unsolicited commercial electronic mail purposefully include misleading information in the messages’ subject lines in order to induce the recipients to view the messages.
(9)While some senders of commercial electronic mail messages provide simple and reliable ways for recipients to reject (or “opt-out” of) receipt of commercial electronic mail from such senders in the future, other senders provide no such “opt-out” mechanism, or refuse to honor the requests of recipients not to receive electronic mail from such senders in the future, or both.
(10)Many senders of bulk unsolicited commercial electronic mail use computer programs to gather large numbers of electronic mail addresses on an automated basis from Internet websites or online services where users must post their addresses in order to make full use of the website or service.
(11)Many States have enacted legislation intended to regulate or reduce unsolicited commercial electronic mail, but these statutes impose different standards and requirements. As a result, they do not appear to have been successful in addressing the problems associated with unsolicited commercial electronic mail, in part because, since an electronic mail address does not specify a geographic location, it can be extremely difficult for law-abiding businesses to know with which of these disparate statutes they are required to comply.
(12)The problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of unsolicited commercial electronic mail cannot be solved by Federal legislation alone. The development and adoption of technological approaches and the pursuit of cooperative efforts with other countries will be necessary as well.
(b)On the basis of the findings in subsection (a), the Congress determines that—
(1)there is a substantial government interest in regulation of commercial electronic mail on a nationwide basis;
(2)senders of commercial electronic mail should not mislead recipients as to the source or content of such mail; and
(3)recipients of commercial electronic mail have a right to decline to receive additional commercial electronic mail from the same source.
Legislative History
Notes & Related Subsidiaries
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Effective Date
Pub. L. 108–187, § 16, Dec. 16, 2003, 117 Stat. 2719, provided that: “The provisions of this Act [see
Short Title
note below], other than section 9 [enacting section 7708 of this title], shall take effect on January 1, 2004.”
Short Title
Pub. L. 108–187, § 1, Dec. 16, 2003, 117 Stat. 2699, provided that: “This Act [enacting this chapter and section 1037 of Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure, amending section 227 of Title 47, Telecommunications, and enacting provisions listed in a table relating to sentencing guidelines set out as a note under section 994 of Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure] may be cited as the ‘Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003’, or the ‘CAN-SPAM Act of 2003’.”
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
15 U.S.C. § 7701
Title 15 — Commerce and Trade
Last Updated
Apr 6, 2026
Release point: 119-73