On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Lloyd Wood wrote: > "Sender pays" is good. The penny black stamp effectively introduced a > flat-rate tax on sending letters, rather than a variable-rate tax on > receiving them, effectively turning mail into a common good available > to all society.
You assume this really means "the spammer pays" [more]. But that isn't the case. This is based on the myth that somehow the receiver pays the entire cost of a spam message. This isn't true, and never was true. The sender is already paying, whether they are spammer or mailing list operator, or regular end user. The fact is that email is so cheap that it costs almost nothing per message to send and receive. It gets cheaper every day, as disks and bandwidth get cheaper and cheaper. The receiver doesn't pay any more than the sender pays. Real commercial spam happens because the cost of sending spam is less than the cost of sending letters or postcards. If you artificially made email expensive, it would be expensive for list operators and regular people as well. You mentioned a rate of one cent per message. That would not be enough to deter spam. A rate of ten cents per message would still be cheaper than postal mail, and so spammers would still exist. Much non-commmercial spam is sent by KLEZ or Nimda viruses. This sort of abuse would not be affected whatsoever. Note that KLEZ infections are already illegal. Think how much it would cost to send out namedroppers, (and the entire bulk of IETF standards related email) if each message to each recipient cost, say $0.10. Or even one cent per message per recipient. This proposal would essentially wipe out many if not most mailing list operators, and most ISPs. I made a proposal back in 1997 that would not eliminate spam, but would keep it out of your mailbox. My proposal was rejected because radicals demanded a complete ban on spam. In 1998, there was an opportunity to get anti-spam legislation passed. Unreasonable anti-spam radicals passed up that opportunity when they insisted on unrealistic demands, and exaggerated and factually wrong assertions about the cost of spam. They assumed they could "shout down" any opposition, as they shouted down more reasonable proposals. They were understandably and easily crushed by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). You can still see my proposal at http://www.av8.com/H.4581/better.html This proposal would have been difficult for the DMA to challenge since they already accept these restrictions on postal mail. You have the radical anti-spam leadership to thank for your spam, and the fact that you don't have a universal opt-out list. The anti-spam effort was for all practical purposes completely crushed when Exactis successfully sued MAPS and demonstrated that blacklists are subject to the Sherman Anti Trust Act and that blacklists weren't protected by the First Amendment. I told Vixie this would happen in 1997. He assured me that anti-spammers could win by technical means. If it wasn't clear that he was wrong in 1997, (and it seemed pretty obvious even then), it is now painfully obvious that Vixie and the rest were very wrong. It is really time for new, reasonable, anti-spam leadership, not artifical changes to the cost of email, or schemes to try to make sending mail more expensive for the senders, and certainly not gyrations in the sending of namedroppers. Thanks to the ineptitude, lack of foresight, irrationality, and general unreasonableness of the anti-spam leadership, spam is here to stay. It is just a matter of degrees of how bad it will be. I note there is some legislation before the house and senate (HR 1017) on spam control, that reportedly isn't opposed by the DMA. However, these only control fraudulent spam. HR 1017 proposes extensions of 18 USC 1030, which makes it a fraudulent spam a crime, but the FBI probably won't bring charges for small violations. There is no provision for a civil action. Another bill (S.630) would require each spammer to maintain an opt-out list. You would have to contact each spammer, and have your email address added to their list, one by one. There would be thousands of spammers to contact. Note that my proposal would had a single opt-out list (the Post Office already maintains such a list for postal junk mail), and my proposal probably could have been passed into law in 1998. --Dean
