To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 13:10:33 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Spam Suggestion
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 07:42:21 -0400 Barry Newton <bnewton at ashcomp.com>
writes:
> Keith (and others):  There's a letter in today's Post suggesting a
> novel
> approach to placing a fee on spam. . .looks at first read like it
> could
> even be workable, at least in some universe.
>
> Barry
>

Charging even one cent per outgoing message per address, if it could be
done, would effectively end almost all spam, since the response rate for
spam is infinitesimal.  If the response rate were .001 (one tenth of one
percent), the cost per response for spam would be $10, if the charge per
address were one cent.  And for most spam the actual response rate (apart
from complaints) is far, far less than that.  It is even perhaps the
case, as has been pointed out by Keith, that spam is at best only
marginally profitable at the current cost of sending it, which is perhaps
on the order of about one hundredth of a cent per address.  Spamming
services, I think, charge about $10 per 100,000 addresses sent to, though
there would be considerable doubt that such services even honestly
fulfill their contracts to spam for other businesses.

It is, however, not possible to effectively enforce a one cent charge on
spammers for each outgoing address.  If the charge were to be imposed by
law, there would probably be some countries which would neglect to make
or enforce the law.  Spammers would simply route through countries
without the law, or those without enforcement.  Even if all countries had
such a law, and attempted to vigorously enforce it, spammers would hijack
servers to get around paying.  Hijacking servers is already illegal, but
the law seems to be impossible to enforce against anyone determined to
hijack servers.

But here is an idea which might work, one which would be completely
voluntary, and which could be freely adopted, or not adopted, by any
individual internet user.  Suppose that email client software which could
send and receive micropayments as part of messages, were available to
internet users.  A user who did not want spam would set their email
program to delete messages from unknown senders which do not include a
micropayment of some minimum amount.  The program would be flexible
enough to allow the user to allow messages from desired senders (e.g. the
WSFA list) without micropayments ( a 'whitelist'), and to vary the amount
of the micropayment required sender-by-sender ( a 'greylist').  Messages
which come in without the user-defined micropayment could simply be
automatically deleted by the client software, or the client software
could be set to save them in a particular folder and to automatically
respond to such messages with a polite message asking that the sender
re-send the message either with a large micropayment such as one dollar,
or with the subject line containing a word which is the correct answer to
a simple question posed in the auto response.  That way individuals who
don't have the micropayment software could initiate legitimate contact
with other individuals, allowing the recipient a chance to 'whitelist'
that sender.  As a matter of courtesy, most users would reply to
legitimate messages from other users which include micropayments, with a
message which includes an equal micropayment.  There could be a 'reply
with equal micropayment' button to facilitate that, and the software
could enable an automatic message confirmation reply, with equal
micropayment, for whitelisted sender addresses.

Ron Kean

.

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