When the Senate approved an antispam bill last month, 97 to 0, beleaguered e-mail users may have thought relief was on the way. But industry lobbyists have been working hard to ensure that any law will be full of loopholes. If the bill gets any weaker, it will be worse than none at all, since it would nullify stronger protections at the state level, including a hard-hitting antispam law recently adopted in California.

No one who has waded through advertising, much of it sexual in tone, hunting for his or her e-mail has to be told how annoying unsolicited commercial e-mail is. Parents have their own concerns, as their children's in-boxes fill up with X-rated messages. Dealing with spam, according to one recent estimate, may be costing American business as much as $87 billion a year.

There are no easy answers, since spammers are notoriously resourceful at getting around any barrier put in their way, but a strong law can make a difference. The Senate bill contains an unfortunate number of compromises, made under pressure from marketing industry lobbyists. ...