The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to outlaw deceptive spam and to set up a "do not spam" registry for those who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial e-mail.
Internet spammers who flood e-mail inboxes with pornography and get-rich-quick schemes could face jail time and million-dollar fines under the bill, which passed by a vote of 97 to 0.
The vote marks the first time the Senate has taken action against an online scourge that now accounts for 50 percent of all e-mail traffic, frustrating consumers and costing businesses billions of dollars in wasted bandwidth and lost productivity.
Similar legislation in the House of Representatives has stalled as lawmakers have tried hammering out differences between two competing bills. The Bush administration said it supported the bill.
Senators noted that spam has become a top constituent concern and could overwhelm the Internet if left unchecked.
"Every day the Senate delays, big-time spammers (get) another opportunity to crank up their operations to even more dizzying levels of volume," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a sponsor of the bill.
"I don't go to a town hall meeting, I don't meet a friend who doesn't say, 'Take care of that spam,'" said Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), another bill sponsor.
The bill would not outlaw all unsolicited commercial e-mail, focusing instead on the fraudulent or deceptive messages estimated to make up two-thirds of all unsolicited commercial e-mail.
Marketers who falsify return addresses or routing information, hide their pitches behind misleading subject lines such as "Re: your request," or promote body-enhancement pills or other fraudulent products would face jail sentences of up to a year and fines of up to $1 million. Repeat offenders could face jail terms of up to five years.
Marketers would have to label sexually explicit messages to allow users to filter them out.
The bill would also prohibit marketers from sending unsolicited messages to consumers who place their e-mail addresses on a "do-not-spam" registry, similar to the popular "do-not-call" anti-telemarketing measure launched earlier this month by the Federal Trade Commission.
Marketers could e-mail addresses not on the list until asked to stop.
Other common spammer tactics, such as hijacking users' identities, using multiple accounts to evade filters, and sending messages to millions of randomly generated e-mail addresses, would be outlawed as well.
State and federal law enforcers and Internet service providers such as EarthLink would be allowed to pursue spammers, but individual users could not sue directly.
More than half of U.S. states have passed anti-spam bills of their own, many of which set tougher regulations for marketers. The bill would preempt most state laws, but would allow states to set higher penalties for deceptive or fraudulent activity if they wished
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