Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 12 May 2003
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Lindsay Williams
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Pay for email

A while ago I saw where someone suggested something like
this. I send you an email and I pay a cent or three. You
reply and pay me the same sum. Net result - no cost.
However, someone who sends more than they receive just
keeps on paying. I thought this a brilliant idea but don't
recall how it was going to be made to work!




From: Philip Crookes
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Spam and how to stop it, perhaps

I have no magic wand to wipe out the spam.

But I do think we would all benefit if we focussed a bit
more on the people that benefit from sending spam - the
companies whose services are promnoted.

Starting where it will hurt most, in the USA, should not
legislators frame laws to say that the end beneficiary of
every piece of spam should be liable to pay a fine of $100
for every instance of spam mail being shown to have been
sent.

To avoid malicious use of spam to hurt legitimate
companies, the law could be so drafted that the company or
individual whose web or e-mail address appears in the spam
must prove that it had no knowledge of the spam and could
not have benefited from its sending.

Given that many of the companies that use spam are
apparently reachable under US law, such a measure should
substantially cut back on the flood of porn and private
part enlargment nonsense.

It could help to make the companies further liable to a
fine for every e-mail that does not conform to a set
standard, including a clearly identifiable e-mail sender
address that can be shown to be associated with the IP
address through which the e-mail is sent.

This might harm the distribution of spam through anonymous
re-mailers, which might not be a bad thing either.

The main point is that it's no use trying to hit the actual
spammers themselves - like the demented 14 year old written
up in the Herald the other week.

14 year olds aren't susceptible to reasoned argument. But
the commercial sex concerns that pay them for their
spamming are, and can be hit hard in the hip pocket nerve.
Until thhey are, the spam will continue.




From: Oliver Bassett
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Fee Based Email

I like the concept, the only problem I can see with this
however is compatibility. I mean to get the service to take
off you would have to get either everyone signed on at once
or make it some way compatible with the current E-mail
systems available. If you make it compatible you have the
same problem, the spam still get's through negating the use
for having the service to begin with.




From: Grant
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: paying for e-mail

One of the key uses for e-mail is mail lists. How many
useful mail lists for social clubs, user groups etc would
be clobbered if you had to pay for each mail you sent to be
delivered to everybody on the mail list.

For instance, one motocycle owners group that I belong to
has about 250 people on the technical mail list. How much
would it cost to run given that most people like me on the
list have about a 50 to 1 receive to send ratio?

I think the only way it could work (and I don't think it
will work), would be to have a 'first-class' opt-in mail
system for businesses or individuals worried by spam and a
second-class open mail system for anonymous or mail list
type e-mailing.

The problem remains the chicken and egg - until enough
people opt-in to pay per e-mail then it is not useful
(remember the days when you had a e-mail address and only a
few geeky friends you could e-mail? <g>)




From: Daniel
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Impossible!

You're talking about re-engineering the Internet.

Every server on the Net capable of sending email would
have to start charging in order to stop spam.

Secondly, if you say that you can only receive email from
these pay-per-send emails then you're effectively
filtering out all legit mail coming from servers you don't
pay for.

Charging per email is a fantasy, and I can't this is
today's topic on Aardvark.
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