From: Bryce <bryce@digicash.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:47:05 -0800 (PST)
To: Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Anonymous mail as spam?
In-Reply-To: <3339331C.4C2A@sk.sympatico.ca>
Message-ID: <199703261646.RAA10051@digicash.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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 A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym 
 "Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>" typed:
> 
>   I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
> email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
>   In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
> just to break even.


Actually I had a talk with a certain anti-spam ISP owner
recently, and she asserted that the spammers don't make
significant money from responses to their spams, but are
instead making their money from stupid newbie companies who 
pay them for advertising service.


It's an interesting proposition.  You would think, though, that
the spamsters might as well just take the stupid newbie
company's cash and then send a couple of token e-mail 
messages, if that's their business model.  :-)


>   I truly believe that the InterNet should be left accessible to those
> without a lot of resources/cash, and that any effort to control abuse
> through cost should be so minimal as to not interfere with the ability
> of those who are currency-challenged to participate in its benefits.


I concur.  Note that a variation on the "good faith deposit"
idea is to make the included payment an actual, final
_payment_.  If it were small enough, it wouldn't really matter
to the sender (especially since she would probably get a
response back containing a similar payment).  Still, in order
to minimize the economic impact on non-commercial senders, 
I favor a deposit instead.  (It can be implemented almost as
efficiently as a final payment would...)


Again I assert, though, that this "deposit" shall have no legal
effect.  The cost of possibly incurring legal liability far 
outweighs the amounts that we are dealing with, effectively 
killing the whole idea in its cradle.


Regards,

Zooko

NOT speaking for DigiCash or any other person or organization.

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