On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 10:50:12PM -0400, Steven Furlong wrote:
> Technology is not needed. Once every American has access to an
> internet connection, thanks to the benevolent government's phone
> surcharge, and everyone has a permanent email address, thanks to our
> wise government's far-seeing policies, our lords and masters can start
> sending essential notices only to those addresses. Paper notices won't
> be sent because they cost too many dollars which can instead be put
> into scholarships for disadvantaged youth, and email addresses with
> private ISPs won't be accepted for this service because the federal
> government can't trust those addresses to be current. It might take a
> few years before the subjects are required to check their USPO email
> regularly, but they can be held responsible for the contents of the
> mailbox immediately.
Well, but: The biggest (I think) source of income for the USPO is not
selling mailboxes or packages or personal letters. It's
junk^H^H^H^Hbulk mail. This is why the USPO has always been reticent
to do anything significant to help you cut down on all the useless
crap you get in your mailbox.
Junk mail is paid for on a delivery basis. (With the exception of
refusing mail, which usually ends up thrown away) once it's in your
post box you MUST process it. You can't just let it stay, you can't
tell them not to deliver it (again, with few exceptions; read
junkbusters for how things work).
You don't need to read it or take it in your house, but it's
essentially guranteed that you need to handle it.
So the question is, how can the USPO charge for delivering junk email?
The answer is, only if they have a reasonable probability the messages
will be "delivered."
This is a very different economic model from regular spam, I
think. Why? Because we have many ways of identifying and deleting
spam withOUT seeing it.
It seems to me the solution is worse, not better, than Steven
suggests. I anticipate a solution that forces you to experience the
ads (sort of like the MPAA is trying to do with DVDs + the DMCA).
Yes, you must check your USPO email regularly for citizen alerts
(e.g., voter registration, driver license renewal, social security).
Furthermore, you must use our mail client, which assures everyone that
you are really you and you really read those messages.
Today's messages in our mail client are sponsored by....
(No, you can't build a device that circumvents the software
responsible for sending you those messages, under section 1201.)
> The ID of this mailbox will of course be the SSN, because that's a
> guaranteed-unique number which every subject is required to have
> anyway.
Or some sort of state ID (drivers license etc.). How long before
the states will jump on the bandwagon?
-- Greg
