CDR: Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers

Tom Vogt tom at ricardo.de
Mon Nov 6 02:58:05 PST 2000


Gil Hamilton wrote:
> Hence, the obvious solution is to make it *cost money to send mail*
> (or to use any other network resource).  Combine that with automated
> reputation handling -- charge a small fee to accept mail from
> "unknown" parties -- and this both reduces spam and shifts the cost of
> resource usage to those using the resources.  Of course, this won't
> completely eliminate spam -- nor arguably *should* it -- but it has
> the potential to make it less cost-effective that it is now -- where
> the cost is effectively zero once you've amassed your list of
> addresses.  This would at least make spammers aim at a more
> tightly-focused target market.

nice idea - micropayment and all. (i.e. a mail would cost $0.0001 so
that ordinary people don't exactly pay anything).

however - here's a bummer: you've got a chance of pretty much 0.00% to
move into that direction, because a different system is already in
place. since it works reasonably well, it'll not get replaced, not even
by a vastly superior one. that's just how things work. unfortunately.





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