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On August 15th, compliance with the Michigan Children's Protection Registry was postponed due to a scrivener's error. The official statement on the ProtectMIchild.com Web site reads:
"Acceptance of sender applications for compliance access began August 1, 2005. Compliance with the requirements of the Protect MI Child Registry has been postponed. The sender access fee will not be charged at this time. When compliance with the Protect MI Child Registry begins, the appropriate fee will be posted on the Protect MI Child website: www.michigan.gov/protectmichild.
The error is in the pricing inconsistency between the compliance rule and the original act. Once the state repairs this inconsistency, we expect compliance to begin."
Several concerns have been raised, however, that may delay compliance even further. It is still unclear whether the federal CAN-SPAM law pre-empts a state's regulation of email commerce.
One of CAN-SPAM's goals was to unify email-marketing requirements on a national level and prevent state-specific hurdles that would significantly hinder Internet marketing. This question will be resolved only if someone challenges the state regulation in court.
The more worrisome aspect of both the Michigan and Utah registries is that their basic premise is poorly thought out.
These are state-wide databases of children's contact information, which are provided to outside companies over the public Internet. The safety and security problems that arise from this setup are overwhelming:
- The Internet is a global place, with a significant presence of the criminal, disturbed, and deviant elements. States have no way of guaranteeing how any company connecting to their registry will use the information it gains.
- Registry administrators and maintainers do not have to go through background checks.
- The database always faces a risk of malicious attacks. The consequences of an entire database of children's email addresses falling into the wrong hands will be disastrous.
For these and other reasons, the Federal Trade Commission has consistently advised against creating any kind of Do-Not-Email list. Instead of offering protection, they present an attractive target to predators who already have little respect for law.
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