In late September, California enacted a new SB 97, a new version of the 2003 spam law that was overridden by CAN SPAM before it went into effect.
Both spam bills and the phishing bills were introducted by Sen. Kevin Murray, one of a handful of state legislators with an interest in online commerce.
The new law basically reconstitutes what it can of the old law that isn't preempted. CAN SPAM says states can make fraudulent e-mail more illegal, so that's what it does.
If a commercial e-mail advertisement uses a third party domain name without permission, or has forged header information, or a misleading subject line, it's illegal in California. More interestingly, any of the recipient, the recipient ISP, or the Attorney General can sue for $1000 per message, up to a million dollars per incident.
