Consumers should be able to opt out of the databases held by cons...

to get messages is more efficient than forcing consumers to tell every spammer the same thing, the system created by the CAN-SPAM act, said EPIC in comments to the FTC on CAN-SPAM rulemaking. List brokers collect e-mail address lists and sell them to companies who use them for mass e-mails. The FTC, EPIC said, can pursue list brokers, although they don’t fall under the purview of CAN-SPAM, by: (1) Using the FTC’s deception authority to act against firms claiming to give consumer e-mail lists only to “trusted partners” but instead making lists available to anyone; (2) Using its unfairness authority, since consumers can’t prevent their data from traffickers and the benefits list brokers provide are outweighed by the harm they cause; (3) Establishing an opt-out option by rulemaking and (4) Seeking authority from Congress to go after the list brokers. The comments likened EPIC’s proposed system to the FTC’s Do-Not-Call Registry, where customers place their names in a central database that bars telemarketers from calling them. While the 2 methods don’t function exactly the same way, EPIC said, both “strike at the root of the problem, rather than plucking at the leaves.”