From: Kee Hinckley <nazgul(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com>
...
Okay. Then what kind of marker would indicate that a message is
something you want to receive? Assume for a minute that if they lie,
you get to have them drawn and quartered--so there's sufficient oomph
to keep it accurate.
If had Habeas had decided to arrange things so that most of the people
I want to receive mail from could use the Habeas mark, but no spammers
lived to do it twice, then Habeas's mark would have been the ticket.
Such a mark would not need to be perfect, which is handy since it couldn't
be. If it carried a $1 liability per copy of spam capped at 0.1% of
the individual's or organization's IRS gross income or revenues, and if
individuals could buy the right to use the mark for the cost Windows
virus protection or the cose of a credit report to varify their identity
(about 10,000% more identity checking than Verisign does for Verisgn
cert), then it might work. Habeas already has the mark whitelisted by
a large fraction of the mailboxes on the Internet. If Habeas offered
me a MasterCard or Visa credit card that whose terms and conditions
allowed the use of the mark including a $1/spam fine capped at $500,
then they might be able to fund the credit check to verify me identity
and have e on the hook if I decided to spam. They might have enough
money left over to pay lawyers to defend a few score $500 fines.
In the real world, I've seen the Habeas mark on the mail of exactly
one individual who I don't think is on Habeas' payroll, and I wonder
about him. It seems Habeas decided to sell the mark only to organizations
willing and able to assume a $250,000 liability, pay for every message
sent, pay a fee of at least $500/year, and tolerate accounting and
auditing of their mailing. They do have a special deal for individuals
who don't use mail commercially, but that excludes many of the people
I want to hear from as well as me. Even those who qualify for the
individual license ought to spend the ~$500 to have that amazingly
long license checked by a lawyer. I assume the lawyers and venture
capitalists have pointed Habeas to where such professionals think the
big bucks are to be found, the coffers of such as Topica.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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