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1997-07-31 - Re: non-censorous spam control (was Re: Spam is Information?)

Header Data

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@issl.atl.hp.com>
To: kent@songbird.com
Message Hash: 6231327470070e03a063f4a8cc99e444150cdc5756320a785e3e3c72bc1844a9
Message ID: <199707312017.QAA05673@jafar.issl.atl.hp.com>
Reply To: <19970731095523.04336@bywater.songbird.com>
UTC Datetime: 1997-07-31 20:39:00 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 04:39:00 +0800

Raw message

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@issl.atl.hp.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 04:39:00 +0800
To: kent@songbird.com
Subject: Re: non-censorous spam control (was Re: Spam is Information?)
In-Reply-To: <19970731095523.04336@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <199707312017.QAA05673@jafar.issl.atl.hp.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Kent Crispin writes:

> I agree.  If charging for mail would eliminate spam, then I should not
> be getting the mailboxfull of physical junk mail I receive every
> morning.  Postage benefits the MAIL CARRIER, not the recipient, and it
> is in the best interests of the mail carrier to carry MORE mail, not
> less.  So, e-postage will almost certainly cause more spam, not less. 

I dunno about the last part of this, but I agree with the basic point
(yes, I agree with Kent! It's a miracle! :-).

I used to think differently, but I've become convinced that the cost
of e-postage isn't going to be high enough that it'll be much of a
control.  Network bandwidth used for the purpose of email transport,
even with increased spamming factored in, is simply too low to justify
charging much for it.  It will still be *way* cheaper than surface mail.
So unless the percentage of people who delete it instantly, sight-unseen,
is higher than I suspect or new tools make it easy to filter out all
spam, it's going to remain economically advantageous for the spammers
to target broadly.


-- Jeff

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