From: bill.stewart@pobox.com
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 08:18:47 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Semi-relevant spam - Re: legislation -- read
In-Reply-To: <199811061627.JAA16550@token1.tokensystems.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981109092119.008aab80@idiom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



It was SPAM, but it does have some relevance to the digital cash business,
so I'll comment on it.  The IP address really is tokensystems.com.
They're in the business of selling tokens and/or tickets which
customers can buy and use to pay for access to web sites,
and which web site owners can redeem for cash with tokensystems.
Tickets cost $1 (I think something they sell is 10 cents, though),
and tokensystems keeps 40% of the take, giving the web site 60%.
The target market is viewing artwork on the net, and they claim
to have sold over 4 million tokens, presumably mostly the porn market
(unlike Mark Twain, which probably never handled that much Digicash :-)
The attraction for customers is that unlike plunking down $X
on credit card for membership at a given web site that they might or
might not think was worthwhile, creates lots of credit card transaction records, 
and which would definitely sell their info to spammers, 
they make one transaction and buy tokens which can be used
at multiple sites, reducing the number of transactions.

Tokensystems doesn't list a privacy policy (except that they offer a 
ticket-buying page that doesn't have porn ads for sites that prefer it).
Don't know if this means they don't have a policy, 
or if their policy is to sell customer info to anyone they can.
If they do offer privacy, they might want to post a privacy policy page
(usng whatever ETrust / TrustE calls itself these days),
and it might be an interesting market for Chaumian blinded tokens,
since customers might like knowing their token uses aren't
traceable back to their purchase records.

They also don't say what they do for fraud prevention - looks like
it's probably online clearing, which reduces their risk,
and makes digicash relatively convenient to deploy.


At 09:27 AM 11/6/98 -0700, bob@tokensystems.com wrote:
>Dear Fellow Webmaster:
>
>The recent events and pending legislation that have rocked the web are
>sure to place new restrictions on the business. We think this is a
>very good solution.
>
>Check it out http://209.203.80.254/exe/tpromo1.cgi?7026131
>
>Or call us if you have any questions.
>Bob
>818-559-3484
>
>
>
>
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639