A problem with Fred's solution is that the most obnoxious spammers would probably set their field to the "non-spam" when they sent out spam, in order to increase the probability that it would be read. This would be similar to spammers using subject-fields such as "Re: Hello" and "In answer to your query" in unsolicited spam.
The most troublesome spammers are not exactly honest in their dealings. A piece of advice I've often heard is actually -NEVER- to send e-mail asking to be removed from the e-mail list of spammers, even if they have a paragraph at the end with an e-mail address that will reputedly "remove you from our lists." The reason is said to be that this will be proof that your e-mail account is active and in use, thus increasing the market value of your e-mail address to spammers and increasing the probability that you will receive spam in future. Ole At 13:29 27.01.2002 -0800, Fred Foldvary wrote: > > What about e-mail spam? The technology seems to prohibit an effective ban > > on spam, yet neither an economic nor legal solution seems > > available. Any thoughts on whether spam can be reduced via > > some sort of economic or technical mechanism? > > Fabio > >I don't have specific expertise on email technology, but as one who has done >computer programming, it seems to me that the simple solution is to require a >field in the email headers that would be set to 1 if the email fits the legal >definition of spam and 0 otherwise. >Software could then easily handle the spam. > >Fred Foldvary > > >===== >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! >http://auctions.yahoo.com
