Sponsor's Message

At the time I thought to myself "hell no, free email is one of the core features of the Net" -- but in recent weeks I have to admit that I've warmed to the idea.

Imagine if spammers had to pay just US$0.01 (NZ $0.02) for every email they sent. Send 10 million emails a week and you have to dig into your pockets to the tune of US$100,000.

The only reason spammers persist is that the current cost of sending email is so low it only takes a small handful of sales to produce a profit. With this in mind, a $0.01 per message fee would put them right out of business without adversely affecting those of us who send just a few messages a day.

It's pretty obvious by now, especially in this country, that we can't afford to wait for the politicians to get their heads out of their behinds in respect to the spam problem, so maybe we need someone to bite the bullet and implement a pay-per-use email alternative.

Of course I'm not suggesting that we get rid of the ubiquitous SMTP-based email service we all use right now. I'm talking about creating a "premium" email service that becomes an attractive option if you want to get away from spam and can afford to spend a few dollars a year to do so.

In effect we'd end up with two email systems on the Net. The first would be the same spam-laden one we have now, the second would be a premium service that was effectively spam-free.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Pay for email... - Lindsay Spam and how to... - Philip Fee Based Email... - Oliver paying for e-mail... - Grant Impossible!... - Daniel From Last Week... Alexa... - Martin CSI isn't the only... - Tara the Simpsons... - Daniel Have Your Say

Now I'm sure there's probably someone already doing this but the fact that I've not read about and can't find such a service on the first page of Google search indicates that they're not doing it right.

Hey, maybe some NZ entrepreneur will get their act together and be the first to launch a robust, properly marketed, effective pay-per-message email system.

So what would be involved?

Firstly you'd need some way to integrate this seamlessly into common email software such as Microsoft Outlook. The idea here would be that most early adopters would probably be businesses and having a near-zero learning curve would be a strong selling point.

Secondly, you'd need enough computing and bandwidth resource to ensure that you could guarantee a high minimum standard of performance and reliability.

But, perhaps most difficult of all, you'd need an accounting system that kept accurate track of the important accounting details associated with the sending of email. Given the huge volume of email that travels around the net ever day, this would be quite an undertaking but critical to the financial and practical success of the service.

And how do you stop spammers from tapping into this service without paying?

One method would be for each "customer" to have a fairly strong digital key that was used to sign every piece of email they sent. This would be verified by the mailserver and all nonconforming messages would be rejected, as would those sent from an account with depleted credit.

But realistically, much as we hate spam, would anyone really pay money for a service that has, ever since the early days of the Net, been absolutely free?

Well here's an idea. Why not give away "premium" mailboxes to anyone who wants them. However, these would be a "receive only" address, albeit spam-free ones.

Such a move would significantly speed the uptake of the service, making it more attractive to those paying the $0.01 to send their messages.

When a customer of such a service sends an email addressed to someone with a regular email address, it's simply delivered using regular SMTP protocols just like a regular email.

Is this a golden opportunity for NZ Post, the US Postal Service and other "postal services" around the world to claw back revenues lost to email?

I reckon so -- but then again, I have been known to be wrong on numerous occasions.

If they acted quickly and forged a robust, secure interconnect protocol, these postal carriers could once again become the leading carriers of business correspondence.

What do you think? Would you, as a business or as a personal Net user, sign up to an email service that virtually guaranteed you'd be free from spam?

If any Aardvark readers have an opinion on today's column or want to add something you're also invited to chip in and have your say.

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