At 12:45 PM 3/19/2003 -0500, Kee Hinckley wrote:
At 10:43 PM -0800 3/18/03, Steve Schear wrote:
In addition, a sender-pays system would be actively fought by every
major online publication, every major software company, and every free
web mail service. And if you priced it cheaply enough that they
wouldn't complain, it would be so cheap as to have no impact on spam.
Well, until the elements for a sender-pays system are available none of
us will know the impact. As to being fought by commercial interests, I'm not
What rational company would spend lots of time and money deploying a
critical new piece of infrastructure that effects how the communicate with
the entire world without having some idea of the impact?
Probably very few, that's why the Intenet and most of the basic services
never came from a rational company.
sure that will matter to me and many others. Because our vision of
sender-pays can be entirely end-user controlled it is our decision if we
cut ourselves off from the herd in order to ensure our peace of mind.
It's the "herd" that needs a solution. A solution which involves
restricting non-spam communications to a small group of the technical
elite is technically interesting, but not terribly relevant.
The spam issue is like gun control. Many people back strict laws and law
enforcement as THE solution even though they know that by the time their
telephone call to emergency services brings help it could very well be too
late for them. Others (especially in the U.S.) take a proactive approach:
they keep and bear arms (some concealed while out in public).
Sender-pays is like being armed. I'm betting that clients implementing a
stamps approach will fare well enough at controlling spam to eventually
gain serious industry consideration. But even if it doesn't it may still
help those so armed.
If you take a look at http://www.camram.org you'll see that it includes
features for a "jail" to hold possible spam. The client can inspect the
email and decide to let it in even if the postage isn't attached and add
it to their white list (e.g., vendor email in response to a
subscription). Additionally,
Now put a value on a spam jail which contains 90% of your email. And
consider what happens if it becomes common enough that the spammers take
notice and start forging addresses from commonly whitelisted senders.
I think this is where signed content could help.
If you are an individual user, communicating primarily with a small group
of known senders, such a system will probably settle down and be useful.
If you are someone who is technically active online, or running a business
that requires timely contact with random people in the outside world, such
a system will be more painful than the spam.
Agreed, no one solution is likely to fit all.
Spam solutions which violate basic economic principals (e.g. "Most people
will not spend money in order to hurt themselves") are not going to be
successful.
At the early adopter stage, sender-pays is indistinguishable from simple
whitelisting. Except that it costs the sender more money.
Forcing unknown senders to spend even a bit more time or a bit of money in
order for their emails to be seen is all that may be necessary to sort them
out from others who's economics depend on enormous volumes of free or
nearly free emails.
If you think I'm missing something here, then please let me know. But
please keep in mind that I'm not arguing that the system isn't technically
feasible, or even desirable. I'm simply arguing that a system that hurts
early adopters more than it helps them is not likely to be adopted.
Many people are already forced by spam to abandon email addresses they've
used for years. This transition hurts them (they must spend time and
effort to inform their previous/frequent contact), yet its done all the
time because they believe it may provide a respite from the flood. Would
adopting a sender-pays be more harmful or difficult? I don't know and none
of us will until various combinations of sender-pays are fielded and trialed.
steve
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general
knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated,
therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the
utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled
out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness,
delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used,
are but three different names for hypocrisy,
chicanery, and cowardice." -- John Adams
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