Fighting to ban spam
Holt and others in Congress have fought for several years to ban traditional spam, and a bill by Republican Representative Heather Wilson passed the House overwhelmingly last year after some controversial provisions were removed. But no significant anti-spam bill has ever become law, in part due to First Amendment concerns.
CAUCE has argued that it's not a violation of the US Constitution if spammers are forced to reimburse network providers and consumers the cost that results from the transmission and receipt of the unwanted email. It has been difficult, however, for lawmakers to determine a fair way to calculate those costs.
The online advertising industry has proposed its own set of guidelines for unsolicited email, but those guidelines aren't as strict as the ones proposed by wireless advertisers. In addition, the Internet has an open architecture, which makes it more difficult to control unwanted messages than in a closed, proprietary wireless network.
That's why Everett-Church, who was a major supporter of the Wilson legislation against spam last year, is less inclined to back Holt's wireless spam bill.
"If you plan anti-spam technology into the wireless infrastructure, you have a much greater chance" of eliminating spam, he said.
