Box 9.1 The Washington State Experience with Anti-Spam Laws In 1998, the Washington legislature passed the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act, RCW 19.190.020, which prohibits unsolicited electronic mail that advertises consumer products with a false or misleading subject line or return address. Such e-mail is more commonly known as "spam." In June 2001, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the state's anti-spam e-mail law. The decision involved a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General's Office on October 22, 1998, against an Oregon man, Jason Heckel, and his company, Natural Instincts, of violating the state's new anti-spam law by sending unsolicited commercial e-mail. While the subject of the e-mails was to promote a for-sale booklet titled "How to Profit from the Internet," the subject header was allegedly "Did I get the right e-mail address?"--a ploy to entice recipients to download and read his entire message. In addition, the e-mail allegedly contained an invalid return e-mail address to which recipients were unable to respond. In March 2000, King County Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson dismissed the case against Heckel and his company on grounds that the state law violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. But in its ruling overturning Judge Robinson's dismissal, the Washington Supreme Court found that ". . . the only burden the Act places on spammers is the requirement of truthfulness, a requirement that does not burden commerce at all but actually 'facilitates it by eliminating fraud and deception.' " The case will be remanded to the Superior Court for trial. SOURCE: Adapted from <http://www.wa.gov/ago/releases/rel_spam_060701.html>.