House Energy and Commerce and Judiciary committee leaders have put forward one anti-spam bill, but progress has been stalled since July by the strong support of many representatives for a tougher bill proposed by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico).

According to a Reuters report last week, Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Billy Tauzin is said to be considering, amongst other options, taking up the Senate's 'Can Spam' bill and sending it directly to the floor of the House without a committee vote.

Under the terms of the Senate bill, sponsored by Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail are prohibited from using a false return address, or a misleading subject line.

Such e-mails must contain a valid way for those who receive them to 'opt out' of the mailing list, and must also contain the sender's physical address, as well as a clear indication that the message contains advertising material.

In addition, spammers will now be explicitly prevented by law from harvesting addresses from web sites, and from hacking into computers to disguise the actual origin of unsolicited e-mails.