{{ I have added Cc: and Reply-To: headers to this response, in an
attempt to move further discussion of this topic to the rationet
list. We were recently admonished that it is off-topic here. }}
Ken Gourlay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Assuming these numbers are accurate, which I wouldn't doubt, do you
> suppose that such charges would slow down a spammer at all? As I
> understand it, they're probably paying at least 100 times that per e-mail
> address. What's another hundredth of a cent to put your ad directly in
> someone's e-mail box?
This is why I suggested that you should be able to charge the sender for
unsolicited messages to your personal email box. If the required
infrastructure was available I'd charge something like $0.10 for every
unsolicited email message to one of my regular addresses and I'd also
create a special email address <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> that would
trigger a pager alert, but an unsolicited message to that address would
cost $1 or even more. (Of course there also needs to be an easy way to
refund this money in case if it's a message that you actually
appreciate.)
> Furthermore, I can't imagine a situation any time soon where the
> administrative overhead could be reasonable.
It'll take a while before the administrative overhead will be so low
that it makes sense to do something like this for _transport_ costs of
individual email messages (which are very low), but it would surely be
possible with today's technology to implement a system with an
administrative overhead which is low enough so that it makes sense to
implement recipient-configurable charges for sending unsolicited email.
That's all it takes to solve the problem of spam.
> I think the individuals *would* mind the hassle. I know I get really
> annoyed when I have to sit down and write a check for twelve cents...
Your time and inconvenience in writing checks, etc. is part of the
administrative cost that needs to be considered, just like there are
administrative costs (in this general sense) with the present system
of not charging for email traffic: The inconvenience of receiving
spam, the inconvenience of mail being silenty discarded without
warning by AOL because it has passed through a mail relay that was
abused by spammers, etc. etc. (I'm speaking from recent experince
here.)
> I agree wholeheartedly with you about conservation of bandwidth: there's
> no excuse for wasting it, but there's a difference between wasting
> bandwidth and utilizing bandwidth. Generally speaking, if the bandwith is
> there it seems a shame not to do something with it, even if that something
> is as trivial as a streaming video image of a fish tank.
Suppose you have plenty of bandwidth and you decide to use it for a
streaming video image of a fish tank. Suppose I also have plenty of
bandwidth, and I decide to use your real-time image of that fisk tank
as a "screen saver". The problem with this is that there is a real
network bottleneck between us - the transatlantic link.
I think that bandwidth across intercontinental links will always be
scarce and expensive in comparison to what can be achieved with
land-based fiberoptic cables, and in the long run the internet will need
a system which discourages needless heavy use of those bottlenecks.
In the example of the fish tank streamed video, I think you should be
free to stream your video image of that fish tank at no additional
cost to you, but I should be made to pay a realistic price for getting
this data transferred across the Atlantic Ocean.
May blessings from the eternal God surprise and overtake you!
Norbert.
--
Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland. Backup e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
