California's law was set to go into effect Jan. 1 but was pre-empted by the newly enacted federal Can-Spam Act, short for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. The state law would have given citizens the right to bring private action against junk e-mailers. It was also one of the country's first opt-in laws, giving people protection from unsolicited e-mail by requiring marketers to gain permissions before sending commercial e-mail. That provision is moot with the federal law.

"Thirty-four million people were disempowered by the enactment of that act and left only the small resources of my office," Lockyer, a Democrat, told a group of attorneys and antispam executives at the "Spam and the Law" conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning.

"It is ironic, with an antigovernment federal government that tells us they trust us and want us to take our own action, that the only thing they did was give the government the right to take action," against spammers, Lockyer said of the Republican administration.

By Stefanie Olsen at CNET.

[ Read more ]

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