Re: [Asrg] Re: Answering a lot of questions about e-postage in a few s

[Replying to multiple messages]

Philip Miller wrote:
> Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
>
> > [snip Barry's words and YS's policy comment]
> > The basic thought behind e-postage is that resources that are being 
> > used should be charged for. Today we already have one such system 
> > which is working sucessfully every day - the Internet. ISPs charge 
> > each other for uplink and downlink bandwidth and resources used. Now, 
> > lets say hypothetically speaking that all ISPs would charge their 
> > customers extra for lets say more than 1000 emails/day. Would it 
> > achieve the same effect as e-postage? Why isn't this model working today?
>
> Hypothetically, it works in the sense that each step upstream (in 
> connectivity, not mail transmission) is charging those immediately 
> downstream for messages transmitted. This means that even if spammers 
> establish their own ISP, they will be charged by their uplink provider.
> However, this doesn't rectify the essential flaw that receivers bear the 
> cost burden of email, not senders. Even if this raises the cost to send 
> imposed on the sender, it in no way reduces the cost to the receiver.
A few comments on this.

First a hierarchy structure for e-postage must solve the settlement 
problem although I don't know how the business side of it will work it. 
For example, if each receiving ISP would let the uplink provider 
negotiate on their behalf, and the uplink provider would combine the 
total e-postage costs for their customers and negotiate on their behalf 
with other provider, that might reduce the problem. Or maybe not.
But in any case, you basic distinction is correct - the receivers bear 
the cost burden. However, IMHO it is not only the receivers - the 
senders and the intermediate systems do as well. However, the cost of 
processing unwanted email versus simple bandwidth costs is much greater 
on the receiver's side. In other systems cited as examples, there is no 
concept that the receiver can charge for resources consumed. The closest 
example is inter-phone company, or inter-post office settlements, but 
the individual receivers have no power to charge. Therefore, were the 
bandwidth costs of postal service minimal to allow marketing companies 
to deluge your mailbox, I am not sure if the receivers would be able to 
do much.
> Jonathan Morton wrote:
> > First things first.  The resource being consumed/abused is the 
> > recipient's inbox.  Therefore we need to make any charge a condition of 
> > entry into a participating recipient's inbox.  That means the recipient 
> > is the one who needs to decide whether a stamp is needed, and whether 
> > any given stamp is sufficiently valid.
What makes it more interesting is that existing postal, phone and fax 
systems do not operate this way. Under normal circumstances, the sender 
alone pays for resources consumed during the transport of his message. 
If postal service would charge 1c for transporting junk mail, nothing 
stops companies from sending thousands of mailings to your house since 
there is no charge for entry into your mailbox. On the Internet however, 
the transport charges for bandwidth are so minimal that it makes it 
worthwhile for spammers to deluge your mailbox.
What we are talking about introducing an ability for the receiver to 
charge for entry into his inbox like Jonathan is saying above. A similar 
notion of interrupt rights and charging for them was floated in a 
research paper recently. What is interesting is that such notion does 
not exist in the postal system aside from inter-post office settlements 
where still the post offices of each countries are not charging for 
interrupt rights BUT are charging for the transport costs to deliver the 
message to the postal boxes of customers.
While the idea sounds swell in theory, it needs more work in practice, 
especially the part about costs vs. benefits. Of course the recipient is 
always free to do whatever he wants, so a distributed system where the 
recipient gets to decide if he can charge for entry to his inbox can 
work if there are standards in place for negotiating that.
> Philip Miller wrote:
> > Barry Shein wrote:
> >
> > > No activity towards establishing some reliable standards for metering
> > > et al. It'd be difficult for a non-neutral party to just assert
> > > standards in an area like this. It'd be better to outline some
> > > potential standards and then get feedback from those with a reasonable
> > > interest, the usual building of consensus cycle.
> >
> > Sounds reasonable.
IRTF activities are usually not geared toward making standards, rather 
toward long term research in outlining some potential standards. When we 
get an idea sufficiently congealed with enough interested stakeholders 
and enough community interest, we pass it on to the IETF for standards 
development.
Therefore, if you want to start outlining some potential work, go right 
ahead. BUT keep in mind that along for such outline it needs to be shown 
that the idea in question will provide enough anti-spam benefits vs. the 
costs of implementation.
Yakov

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Yakov Shafranovich / asrg <at> shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / research <at> solidmatrix.com
"Some lies are easier to believe than the truth" (Dune)
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