ietf-asrg
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RE: [Asrg] Thoughts so far

2003-03-18 12:39:16
Right on the money.  We all get 4th Class adverts in our 
postal boxes but 
few seem to complain even though we are forced to spend a few 
valuable 
seconds of our time each day dealing with it.  How is this markedly 
different, financially, from email spam?  Following along the 
apparent line 
of reasoning of the above decision no commercial entity would 
be able to 
contact me w/o prior authorization, and we know this will 
never become the 
law of the land.  Because many spammers may not be repeat 
offenders to the 
same party, opt-out systems won't work.  Opt-in might but 
who's laws will 
prevail in enforcing them.

Actually I tried complainng about 4th class mail. I put a huge notice on
my letterbox that said "3rd class and 4th class mail not accepted". The
mailman ignored it, of course. I now pile up all the junk mail I get on
top of the letterbox, marking it "wrong address" or "not accepted", and
the mailman makes a point of circling "The resident" to prove that it
has in fact been correctly addressed.

I'm dead center in the sender-pays camp, Proof-of_work initially and 
anonymous bearer stamps later.  Its the same tried and true 
system that 
limits the spam in my postal box to a small amount, almost all from 
credible parties.  It doesn't require major changes to the email 
infrastructure, though clients would need to be enhanced 
(web-based email 
could add this almost immediately, plug-ins may suffice for 
some, like 
Eudora), nor new legislation.  Initial users may find they 
become less 
"reachable" to casual contacts, but that should only last a 
short while if 
sender-pays becomes popular.

Actually, sender-pays could be implemented at the ISP level. ISPs would
automatically pay for stamps on outgoing mail, and bill it back to the
sender.

Sender-pays also doesn't even have to use stamps. It can be implemented
as a financial arrangement between two mail servers (relays or
otherwise). Mailservers run by entities that trust each other could even
reconcile any handlign fees at the end of the month or even year.

I think it would be important for every receiving server to be able to
set its own charges. These could even be listed in an extended MX
record.

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