(Direct Newsline)—The U.S. Senate voted last Wednesday to approve the long-awaited Can-Spam Act. The revised bill calls for the creation of a national do-not-spam list.

The Senate voted 97-0 to approve the bill, with three senators absent.

The Direct Marketing Association is expected to come out in favor of the bill, but has taken a strong stand against the no-spam registry.

"We still support the Burns-Wyden bill," said DMA spokesman Louis Mastria in an interview before the vote was taken. "It's a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow because it has this do-not-e-mail list in it. But at the end of the day, it's important to have a national law on spam. Getting that is the first step to eliminating spam."

The bill prohibits senders from concealing their identity and using a false return e-mail address or misleading subject line. It also becomes illegal to harvest e-mail addresses off Web sites.

The bill mandates that senders include a way for recipients to opt out of receiving e-mail. Under the bill, senders would be required to include their physical address, along with a clear notice that the message is an advertisement.

The do-not-spam amendment was introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who worked for months to reach a compromise on including the list with bill sponsors Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

An announcement put out by Schumer's office before the vote said the compromise would require the Federal Trade Commission to deliver a plan to Congress for creating a no-spam registry within six months. It authorizes the FTC to implement the plan within nine months. But the timing of the FTC actions may have changed during Senate debate.

Another amendment inserted into the final bill would criminalize the sending of spam, sending violators to prison for up to three years.