That won’t help to cut down on text spam, of course — it might even increase it. So I still think this type of bill is necessary, but I’d generalize to any communications form.

Like the junk fax law, I’d say that spam is prohibited on any medium that has a chance of costing the recipient money unless the recipient opts in or has an existing business relationship with the sender. For a medium where the recipient does not incur significant costs (snail mail, phone solicitation, etc.), a law like CAN-SPAM would be in effect (although, personally, I’d still prefer an opt-in mechanism because filtering still wastes my time).

Furthermore, I’d like a provision like in England or Europe, where people keeping your personal data have to notify you every year about what they have (I’d also require saying where they got it from and how they use it) and give you the option of updating or deleting your data.

Finally, I’d require any company that sells your data to split the proceeds with you. :D

Steve