The Direct Marketing Association has decided to endorse anti-spam laws, realizing that "illegitimate" spam (buy a PhD in making porn fast) is encouraging people to delete, block or otherwise not pay enough attention to "legitimate" spam (buy most everything else).

The DMA told [PDF] the Senate Commerce committee in April 2001 that a law governing spam might not be objectionable if it overruled about 20 state laws currently on the books and prohibited only "the practice of sending fraudulent electronic mail messages" with forged headers.

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But, [Jerry Cerasale, the DMA's vice president for government affairs] said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."