California consumer group Voter Revolt plans to place a voter initiative on the November 2000 ballot that would require e-mail and telephone marketers to get permission before they could send solicitations through either medium.

The measure would also give recipients of unwanted telemarketing calls and junk e-mail the right to sue violators for up to $1,500 per violation. And it would give Internet service providers the right to sue offenders for costs incurred as junk mail passed through their systems.

"Virtually everyone finds junk telephone calls and e-mail intrusive and annoying, yet politicians refuse to put a stop to them," Mike Johnson, executive director of Voter Revolt, said. "With this initiative, we are saying loudly and clearly, 'Stop bugging us.'"

Current state law requires the sender of unsolicited e-mail ads to provide a toll-free telephone or e-mail address that recipients can contact to get removed from the mailing list. Federal law requires telemarketers to maintain lists of people who do not want such calls. But neither is effective when the offenses have already been committed and often continue, unabated.

Voter Revolt's measure would forbid marketers from contacting any California resident who did not ask to receive such e-mails or phone calls. It would also cover businesses and nonprofit solicitors.

Jason Catlett, president of the advocacy group Junkbusters Corp., applauded the group's effort. "It's part of a rising tide of public sentiment requiring consent from marketers to contact and use of personal data," he said. Junkbusters fights against "spam," as unsolicited commercial e-mail is derisively called, and for Internet users' privacy.

"Spam is shoplifting time and bandwidth," Catlett said. "It clogs people's communications channels, burdens them with the task of removing it and the material is often objectionable, pornographic or obscene."

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