At 09:22 -0500 on 03/11/2005, Bruce Lilly wrote about Re: Can
reputable domains stop outgoing spam?:
... and the fact that AOL is one of the largest senders of unsolicited
commercial mail (floppy disks and CD-ROMs as well as email)
There is one MAJOR difference between the AoL unsolicited commercial
mailing of floppy disks and CD-ROMs and that of email. In the Disk/CD
case AoL not the Recipient are doing the paying the full cost for
delivery (as with all "Junk Snailmail"). With Email, aside from the
cost of the injection of the Email into the Internet Email System, it
is the Recipient (or their ISP acting as their agent) who pays the
cost of receipt of the email. This is the same as if the
Floppy/CD-ROM came "Postage Due" and you had to pay (sight unseen)
the USPS to accept the Floppy/CD-ROM.