Subject: RE: spam

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 14:25:33 -0700

Noel,

> J. Noel Chiappa wrote: 
> The *only* thing that's going to stop spam is charging for
> email. Everything else is a waste of time.

I agree. The reason why junk paper mail and catalogs stay under control
is because they cost a lot of money to send.

> because you're going to run into impossible arguments
> trying to define what's spam, and what's legitimate
> bulk email.

Yes. Sigh.

> Needless to say, charging for email means changing the
> underlying protocols. That's us. It's not going to be simple
> (we need an underlying micro-payments system),

I would like mega-payments please.

> and it's going to take a lot of attention to detail
> (q.v. IETF-Announce again), but I think it's the only
> real cure.

I think that I would like is a system that charges $20 for each email
received. No money, no email. Then if the email is spam the recipient
(me) keeps the money. You can be sure that at $20 a spam I would drop
all my filters and begin to read them.

If the email is not tagged as spam after say a week, the system charges
it back. Such a system is going to be extremely difficult to deploy
though.

Michel.