On Mon, 23 Sep 2002 23:57:52 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >How would the permission based bulk email industry be affected by e-postage? >You know, this mailing list for example.
Two possibilities for handling that: 1) I could pay a fee to subscribe, or 2) I could set my newsreader to accept from specified senders without a 'stamp'. In the first case, I would be getting back at least a portion of my subscription fee with each email. In the case where the 'stamp' goes entirely to me, it's a wash. In the case where a portion of the 'stamp' goes to the ISP, I would expect at least some of that to subsidize my connection. Notice that #1 would effectively eliminate most list-bombing. A person would have to be willing to pay money to sign someone else up for a list. #2, of course, assumes that there is some mechanism in place that prevents forgery. Some relatively trivial public-key encryption technique would probably suffice. I can forsee a scheme where the e-postage mechanism is entirely voluntary. For instance, I just set up my newsreader with a whitelist for people that are allowed to contact me without a 'stamp', and auto-notify anyone not on that list that the only way to get my attention is to attach a 10-cent 'stamp'. Once I get an email from somebody I want to add to my whitelist, I can return his dime. I see similar auto-ack bots already in place, so there is not any groundbreaking new technology involved. *One* cent per email is probably sufficient to end spam completely, but if it isn't, I can raise the required postage amount until it's enough. Imagine most folks requiring you to send them some specific and arbitrary small sum of money in order to get on their no-charge whitelist... Who would buy a spammer's 5-million-plus name list then? Remember, my original proposal was based on the assumptions of efficient and convenient micromoney + secure ID of sender. They ain't here yet, but they are coming. When those two facilities get here, I think that e-postage, or something very similar, will quickly become the way things are done. All that is required is some mechanism that is not overly burdensome for normal users, but prohibitively expensive (or just not free, which is really the same thing) for spammers. -- Howard Lee Harkness [EMAIL PROTECTED] Texas licensed Life, Health, Property & Casualty Insurance Agent _______________________________________________ spamcon-general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
