I don’t think that there is anyone who likes receiving the mountains of spam email being generated daily. However, it’s nearly free to the generators of spam, and there is no incremental charge for amount to send out.
The Wall Street Journal has a section devoted to Junk E-Mail (Subscribers only - sorry ). One of the proposals constantly being thrown out is adding a cost to sending email. Let’s say that each ISP must charge $2.00 per 200 recipients per account, to be turned over to the FTC to help combat much of the fraud coming through the spam channels. I believe that tacking on these costs would provide a huge disincentive to spam emailers, a minor inconvenience to everyday users, and a legitimate cost-of-doing-business expense to other businesses.
My plan isn’t perfect, as only U.S. companies would be affected. Also, given the way gov’t budgeting works, the FTC would get the windfall, but then see its budget cut by the expected windfall (sorta the way NYS lottery and education worked when it was reintroduced).
Still, this sounds like a plan which could be fleshed out to help stem the tide of spam. Any ideas either on how to make something like this work, or why such an idea is totally doomed to failure. How else can this tidal wave be slowed down (don’t think power-user willing to go extra mile to stem the flow, think average Joe just getting on computers/web)?
[P.S. I know this has probably been debated before, but I was losing the fight with the SDMB hamsters and then my browser crashed, so I’ll start the topic fresh again].
I would say it is doomed to failure based purely on the fact that non-US companies won’t be affected. Spammers will simply get accounts outside the US and spam away.
No time for a longer response right now, I may have a bit more to add later.
Email is useful for two main reasons. First it is fast second it is cheap. This proposal basically makes email less useful and will really not do much to eliminate spam.
Phone calls cost money, as does snail mail, but we still have telesales and junk mail. If there were any price on email, even if it were charged in every country in the world (or there was some other reason the spammers couldn’t use the foreign ISP get-out), they would still find a way to pay little or nothing for spam email, same as they do with the other communications utilities. It would just end up costing the regular customer more.
Email is extremely cheap to send and receive, evidenced by the fact that no email providers charge for usage, though they do charge for things like storage. The only people who are really inconvenienced by spam are the end users that have to wade through the junk every day.
Since it’s the end user that wants to get rid of spam, it will probably be the end user that pays. Would the average person spend a few bucks a month for a top notch feature laden spam filter for their email? I don’t personally get nearly enough spam to make it worth the money.
Not all email is sent or received by ISPs. I have a personal email server that handles all the email sent or received by my personal domain. My employer (not an ISP) has email servers that handle all email for over 100 domain names (all internal to the organization). Neither of our ISPs is aware that we have email servers. Who pays this tax? Do I have to file an “email tax return” for my home computer? I can guarantee that my employer would not be happy to have to pay additional taxes just to continue using email. The contract we have with our ISP does not include email service, by the way, just Internet connectivity. We’d probably end up having to outsource our email service to a third party provider and ban employees from sending or receiving personal email, as well as develop a technological workaround that would allow us to communicate between our offices and with field staff without sending email.
BTW, there is a solution to spam email. It lies in using distributed trust, and in email servers that only accept email from trusted mail transfer agents (MTAs). The downside is that when you bring up a new MTA, you have to find somebody (who already has trust in the system) to declare “This is a trustworthy MTA, they won’t send spam”. A spammer would (hopefully) not be able to get their MTAs certified trustworthy, and their attempts to send mail would be rebuffed for a lack of trust.
I know the biggest problem with paying for email is the fact that non-US countries would not be obligated to pay.
Telemarketing and junk mail work because enough people respond to make the costs worthwhile. Spam must work for the same reason. However, if spam is made more expensive, will it still work? I don’t have any figures to trot out, but I suggested something on the order of $2.00 for 200 emails. Not a huge sum of money. One of the spammers interviewed by the WSJ was sending out 10,000 to 15,000 emails per day. His hit-ratio is going to have to improve to remain a profitable alternative. The spammer says he was getting 10-15 hits/day from his efforts. If it costs him $150/day, will 15 hits still be worth it?
One company is building an exclusive opt-in feature. Hotmail has its exclusivity list (which I use). Neither of these reduce the flow of spam, just put blocks in the way. I’m wondering how the flow can be slowed. I certainly don’t know, but maybe there are some good ideas on the SDMB.
I don’t know if this is feasible, but perhaps for every email, somewhere in it’s route, the source is checked to see if it is real, and if so, a receipt is sent back to the mailer, with the sender’s email masked. If not real, the message is destroyed. At least the spammer would have to deal with the receipts.
I don’t know about you but I’ve collected a few “friends” who think every piece of dribble they receive should be forwarded to the 200 addresses in their address book. If a sending tax could be applied, I’m FOR it.
Or perhaps a system that would restrict messages exceeding a certain size to a different method . . .
They should also offer a service where only 2 types of email are accepted:
Email from qualified senders, specified by the user. (Perhaps sending a piece of email to someone would automatically add them to the list. This could be over-ridden of course.)
Email from those who pay a fee to Paypal. Say, 30 cents - $2. I would imagine that Paypal would forward some (not all) of that to the recipient or some charity.
Why wait for Paypal to implement this system? If it sounds feasible from a business perspective, have you ever considered going into the e-mail service business yourself?
Well, I would think that Paypal (now part of EBay) would have the experience to handle the myriad of micro-payments involved.
Also, they already have a large user-base of monetary accounts; my scheme could be tacked on to their existing business in a fairly straightforward manner.
However, if Paypal wants to hire a consultant, they know where to find me.
Email would be accepted from addresses that are on an “accept” list, as designated by the receiver. No charge.
To make the system easy to use, a user could choose to have addresses automatically added to his accept list when he sends out an email message to that person or organization.
There would also be an option to edit the accept list.
OTOH, a total stranger could also send a message to the user, provided that the stranger is willing to pay the small fee.
SPAM and other mail from cheapskate strangers gets bounced or simply deleted.
A private sector solution. No regulation necessary.
How about this for a wild idea, kinda a variation on programs like MyPoints and or comission junction. Email service that PAYS YOU! Hell I would let them spam my account all day if I was getting even a tenth of a cent for each junk email I recieved. Let the spammers pay your mail service to send messages, but make it a pay-per-click arrangement. For every one of the emails that we sent, provider collects say .01, email recipient is paid .001 “for thier trouble” Toss in a .05 pay per click to the providers and maybe a .005 to the user for clicking. 10% of all revenues are going back to the customer but the user has an incentive to click through and free spammers get blocked like in prior suggestions. You’re either on the users accept list, or you are a paid advertiser. Sounds pretty damn simple…
Drach: That’s the idea behind the “kickback”. If somebody wants to send you an email (and they don’t want it to be bounced), they would pay (say) 50 cents to Paypal, who in turn would probably pass 25 cents to your account.
Or the account of your charity.
Set the monetary threshold low enough, and maybe you would get more spam (after all, junk mailers exist). Set it higher and you may find that fewer junk email artists will deal with you.
Uh, well, mail wouldn’t move without mail transfer agents. I think your question is, has anyone tried using trusted MTAs. As far as I know, the answer is no.
I think your question is, has anyone tried using trusted MTAs. As far as I know, the answer is no.