Re-inventing the postage stamp 3

[GwydionM]

What do people think of the latest proposal for charging for e-mails,

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/index.html,

important mostly because it is Bill Gates who is now saying it.

I have looked at the arguments against. My view is that almost anything would be better than a mail-box of stuff aimed at junkies and gullable fools. And if you need to share messages between a large number of people, a forum is the natural and sensible form.

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A view from the UK

 

[sleipnir214]

And if you need to share messages between a large number of people, a forum is the natural and sensible form.

I guess I can kiss goodbye all the email lists I subscribe to.



This whole suggestion is an interesting academic exercise. But it does not handle the fundamental question of who's going to handle the money.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[theoxyde]

Umm... Can I volunteer to handle the money?

 

[Zelandakh]

It is impractical in my opinion. You can't get home users to buy and install AV. How are you going to manage payment for emails?

There are so many open relays that spammers will use them and Joe User will get an email postage bill of like $10,000 for a day and refuse to pay.

Someone on TT suggested shooting the spammers. Probably about as likely to get through the powers that be.

 

[lionelhill]

<heavy irony> I feel so sorry for people who have to tackle huge moral dilemmas such as that illustrated by this quote from the article:

"It's nice not to have to calculate whether greeting grandma is worth a cent."

What a difficult calculation that must be. Of course we must never charge for e-mails; people should be saved from this sort of predicament.
</heavy irony>

Haven't people got better things to panic about?

 

[johnherman]

Let's just make sure that they don't charge the receiving party anything. Like today's snail mail. If someone wants to sent me something, they pay, not me.

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because there is more manure there - original.

 

[pharcyder]

Well, perhaps you should actually read the source, there it mentions you don't have to pay with money but with like 10 seconds of computing time. ;-)

Then your mail would get a "virtual stamp" and your mailclient could just ignore mails without a stamp.

The spammers would have to buy better machines (for slightly
faster "stamp generation") or just wait a loooong time

Greetings,
Jens

 

[Dimandja]

or just wait a loooong time

Unless of course your email starts with the letter "A"; then, you get spammed right away, every time.

Dimandja

 

[SgtJarrow]

While this has been hased out already several times, a good idea would be to remove e-mail from the ISP. Just like going to the post office to buy postage stamps, you have to subscribe to a mail service...You pay so much in advance and it's credit towards your mail usage....kind of like prepaid cell phones. I see this being the moved of the future. But the ISPs may also keep mail services and just charge you at the end of the month...similar to non-prepaid cell phone usage today.

The whole controversary stems around the greenback....someone out there is not making as much money as they used to becuase the "free" dissimenation of information via e-mail...instead of writing that letter (paper companies, pen manufacturers), putting it in an envelope (paper again), sticking a stamp on it (postal service) and putting it in the mail, you take a second or two, type your message and hit send.

=======================================
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. (Calvin from Calvin And Hobbs)

Robert L. Johnson III
CCNA, CCDA, MCSA, CNA, Net+, A+
w: rljohnso@stewart.com
h: wildmage@tampabay.rr.com

 

[sleipnir214]

All this plan does is move the mail server from an ISP to some other agency.

And how does this affect large corporations like Mi[&cent;]ro$oft and IBM? Are we going to force them to give up their internal mail servers to implement this plan?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[Stevehewitt]

Obviously someone has way too much time on their hands and is dreaming of an idea.

One of my current clients sends circulars of their offers to customers who agree to having them sent. They like it, and my customer likes it.

Why should we have to pay per message after investing £1000's in hardware, softtware, networking and ISP charges just to tell people that want to know our current special offers?

Pathetic idea. I like the one mentioned above - shoot the spammers.


Maybe a slightly more realistic idea would be that ISP have threshold of say 50 mails per account per day. (outgoing). Once they are over that, their account gets flagged and the ISP will call them ASAP. If its just 55 or so, then no probs, if its 50,000 then close the mail queue and find out what they are doing?

If its a ligitimate businesss (a registered company with a proper - non hotmail/yahoo/other free account - ISP and a real address and they will be sending out mail shots to their customers of 1000 a week, then the client should inform the ISP and they can keep tabs. Once an abuse message is sent to the ISP about the customer they can investigate.

Just empower the ISP and put a sending limit of 50 per 24 hours on all free accounts - stop making the victim the punished.

Rant over!

Steve.

 

[sleipnir214]

Sure, that'll stop the mom-and-pop operations that have bought one of those "50 million addresses for $19.95" CDs.

But that's not going to stop a serious spammer who has the financial resources to tie into multiple ISPs or to set up VPN relays to colocation servers on other networks.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[ChrisHunt]

The spammers would have to buy better machines (for slightly faster "stamp generation") or just wait a loooong time

...or just forge the stamps.

What schemes like this forget is that spammers are criminals. If the rules get in the way of making a fast buck they'll just get broken. Lots of honest web users and site owners will be out of pocket, whilst spammers will just move offshore, spoof other people's addresses or just forge the stamps.

Anyway, who's all this money going to go to?

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[guestgulkan]

I do not believe spammers are criminals - if so then as far as I'm concerned all the producers of popup windows on the internet (ebay for example?) and flash adverts should be treated likewise.

 

[sleipnir214]

Not all spammers are criminals.

But if a spammer is forging sender addresses, hiding behind offshore mail relays or using spam zombies then he is one.


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[GwydionM]

There are so many open relays that spammers will use them and Joe User will get an email postage bill of like $10,000 for a day and refuse to pay.

Even if it was a cash-based system, people would notice that their machine was being used. One of my machines was infected with pop-ups and could have been sending out junk as well, for all I know. Since it wasn't a big hassle for me, I never bothered checking.

If it started costing real money, everyone would check carefully.

As for offshore operations, these can be closed down when people with real power want them closed. 'Offshore accounts' suit some people, as do countries where they can enjoy things that are banned at home. But now some serious commercial interests want to use e-mail, I think the spammer's days are numbered.

What worries me is that a law might get written that allows big rich companies to pester us with offers similar to existing junk mail. Much quicker to junk, but we should be lobying for a rule that says that big companies must buy a much more expensive stamp to 'cold-call' via e-mail.

I'd also favour a 'clear-list' of people from whom you'll accept e-mail for free.


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A view from the UK

 

[danomaniac]

I think charging per email is rediculous. I pay $24.95 /month for internet access - that should be all-inclusive. If the goal is to stop spammers - this ain't the way. I don't know what is, but I do know charging people for emails won't solve a thing. As was stated earlier in this thread, charging for email is just someone trying to hang on to lost revenue from the old snail mail regime. Sorry. I imagine at one time several horse breeders were complaining about losing money when the railroad replaced the Pony Express, or how about all the displaced auto workers when they put robots on the assembly line...it's progress folks. Rather than trying to tax a new technology based on outdated thinking, we should redesign our business model to fit the new technology. Just because it's okay to charge to deliver a letter, doesn't mean it's okay to charge to deliver an email.

&quot;It's more like it is now, than it ever has been.&quot;

 

[Grenage]

But nothing in the article even hinted at charging people money to send an email.

 

[danomaniac]

It did when I read it...

Headline - "...That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying "stamps" for e-mail. "

1st paragraph... " At perhaps a penny or less per item, e-mail postage wouldn't significantly dent the pocketbooks of people who send only a few messages a day."

How else am I to interpret that?

And who decides what's significant? I think a penny or less is hugely significant. It's principal - not cost.

Then they talk about solving a 10 second puzzle before sending an email to show your good faith...that would make me more angry than charging me money. Even if they're not talking about charging me, Joe Consumer, but rather charging the companies that send junk email - it doesn't matter. Doesn't it all come down to bandwidth? An ISP should charge a monthly fee for access to X amount of bandwidth per month. If a company exceeds their alotted amount, charge them more.

If the spammers are cutting into the ISP's bandwidth and forcing their costs up, then it's up to the ISP to figure out how to block the spammers. That's a cost of doing business.

&quot;It's more like it is now, than it ever has been.&quot;

 

[Grenage]

10 seconds for an email is never going to work I agree, especially with legitimate newsletters that are perhaps sent thousands at a time.

It would take 13 hours to send 5000 emails.

Personally I would prefer that the entire email system was re-designed to avoid issues such as spoofed addresses.