This may be the most important column I've written for this paper in the five or so years I've written them. It's hopefully a wake up call to our list industry and the direct marketers who both use lists and benefit from them.

Congress is writing legislation that will completely destroy what and how we do things for a living - and it's completely an unintended consequence of decent but poorly written legislation. The legislation is being touted as the Anti-Spam Bill relating to Email marketing. If you haven't been under a rock, you realize that the future of the list business is - Email marketing.

It's no secret that the topic of Email marketing has become a legislative hotbed in Washington. What many do not realize is that of the sides being drawn by the current legislative activities, none of them favor or are championing the needs of the list industry, specifically, the owners and renters of lists, except our own DMA. That is not enough, we all must talk to one another, and speak to our elected representatives. If you read on you'll realize that others are speaking to them and it’s not good for us.

We're a very responsible industry and our story must be told to Congress. The E-commerce bill that draws immediate attention is the Internet Growth and Development Act (HR 1685), sponsored by Rep. Frederick Boucher (D-VA) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

HR 1685 is a broad bill that deals with more than just Email transmissions. This bill also has sections relating to electronic signatures (Title I), and online privacy (Title III), as well as speeding broadband Internet access (Titles IV and V) which can hurt us in the serving of Email (but that's another story).

The operative language is contained in Title II, 'Electronic Mail Advertisements', which defines the term 'unsolicited electronic mail advertisement' as: 'any electronic mail advertisement that meets both of the following requirements:

(A) It is addressed to a recipient with whom the initiator does not have an existing business or personal relationship.

(B) It is not sent at the request of or with the express consent of the recipient.

Obviously, Part A would completely stop all list rental actions of any sort 'dead in the water'.

Part B is so 'tightly written' that a decent attempt at "Opt-In", which our industry is trying to edge towards, could be construed as to no prior relationship, 'not at the request of' and finally, 'not expressly asked for'.

This language basically kills the list business for any commercial Email. It's interesting that in the legislation the authors exempted all political Email.

The two congressmen who are sponsoring this bill are a Republican and a Democrat, both from Virginia. This bill grants EMSP's (electronic mail service providers) the ability to decide what messages can be filtered from their subscribers. Allegedly to avoid unwanted SPAM or UCE (unsolicited commercial email).

Probably the most famous of these EMSP's is AOL, ironically a Virginia firm.

AOL claims that 30% of all electronic messaging hitting their facilities is in this category and costs them (and therefore their customers).

In reality this legislation allows AOL to stop any electronic mail or advertising from entering their systems. For those of you already involved in Email that's 30% of current users. That means that if you rent an Email list with AOL names on it (30% on average) those individuals will not get your advertisement, unless, I bet, AOL gets a financial piece of the transaction. That's analogous with the doorman of your apartment getting his cut of the postage!

Of course that's only going to happen if the individuals all 'expressly' ask for your information. Through AOL and only through them (no rental needed) a prior relationship exists. Therefore, if you want to use electronic marketing and this legislation passes AOL and some lesser EMSP's will be your only shot.

This is the future of the list industry unless we all wake up and call our congresspersons. On the surface this Anti-Spam Bill sounds like mother and country. Don't let the Congress be persuaded by the "spam statistics", ultimately the consumer is getting hurt by not seeing legitimate offers while the industry as a whole is getting hurt by loosing 1/3 of the potential universe.

Overall, everyone involved in the Direct Marketing community needs to become aware and get involved with the activities in Washington relating to Internet commerce. If we don't pull together and rally as industry professionals, we may all be out of the Email marketing business.