Mr. Geist's comments focus fundamentally, and correctly so, on bad actors. The issue we're raising is not with respect to bad actors. No one likes spam, certainly none of our members. We can speak about our client base. None of them like spam. It's extraordinarily costly for business. Bad actors should be appropriately punished. That's not the issue, which is what's fundamentally raised. We're talking about a legislative scheme that applies to all legitimate activity. That is a problem compounded not only by sheer scope but also by very complex prescriptive rules that, when you look at real life examples, don't make sense for small business.
We agree that if there's a bad actor, such as those spammers that are now gone from this country, the punishment they would get through a very focused private right of action or another remedy makes sense. What we're talking about and what our members are concerned about is the expansive scope of a legislative regime that applies to everything. Through a very complicated scenario, you're effectively playing Whac-A-Mole when trying to understand the legislative scheme, because it says everything is covered except for things that aren't.
