This act would prohibit some actions that are clearly intentional. No one accidentally falsifies a header, right? So if we receive e-mails from a source that looks just like RBC, that wasn't an accident—it was fully intentional. We think that in such cases it wouldn't make sense to force the prosecution or the plaintiff to show intent. Other actions could be honest mistakes. If you accidentally send an e-mail to a consumer who has asked you to stop sending more e-mails, there are serious market forces working against that kind of mistake—you don't want to annoy your potential customers. This is why we've suggested Senator Goldstein's language, which makes it clear that this would not apply if the contravention were due to an honest mistake. That kind of clarification would go a long way towards assuaging those concerns.
On September 30th, 2009. See this statement in context.