no more of this:

FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD: Another Retarded Chain letter.

Thats whay I have a n exclusive address book.
The rest is junk, I look at it to make sure no one I know "slipped" into the junk box, then I click. delete.
Takes a few seconds of time and the spammers wasted their time sending it

holy crap! the whole point of email is to be able to contact people quickly and free! so that anyone can use it. what about free email sites like yahoo and ivebeenframed.com? will you have to pay for the adress and every message?

one word

STUPID

I would hope some concept like the "NEIGBORHOOD" used by wireless would apply.

I can see advertisers paying to e-mail, but not Intranet users back and forth or people in your own address list.

C2C or consumer to consumer should not be charged, nor probably B2B, but B2C I can see.

I wonder how this would affect instant messaging programs? maybe they would start charging for that as well. Like long distance telephone charges. Thats terrible.

...but even a charge of $.01 for emails would stop spammers, probably. Especially if they send out millions of them a day.

1 Million emails would cost Ten Thousand dollars, in that case. Im sure that would scare them away...
But Im sure they would charge more than a penny.

A software solution is possible to stop spammers.

The email server just have to have your contact list, and when an email is incomming, if the sender adress is not in your list, the message is rejected BY the server ( like Hotmail is already doing it when you send a 4 MB email to a free hotmail account ).

Thats whay I have a n exclusive address book.
The rest is junk, I look at it to make sure no one I know "slipped" into the junk box, then I click. delete.
Takes a few seconds of time and the spammers wasted their time sending it

Yep, that's what most sensible folk do...

As for a software solution...yep, I'll agree to that too... However, if it does go through, I'd hope to have the "neighborhood" plan, such as another member suggested... I don't plan to pay for e-mail, and there are ways around such an idiotic idea...

I think this is silly.
For the most part, the emails addresses I frequently use to communicate with people are free of spam. I wouldn't look kindly on having to pay to send email, even if it is just one cent.

If they do that then all compilers and programming tools will have to be confiscated, because there are people out there who can write their own SMTP and POP servers, and continue with free email. Same goes for charging for IM services, it will never happen because it would be too difficult, unless ISPs start charging you based on say the quantity of TCP packets using the MSMessneger or IRC protocol. Plus even in the event that email was moved to a pay-type service, you still have the malicious spammers who would compromise legit servers and send out the emails anyway, racking up bills for the victims and still propagating their spam.

Spam is getting worse, but I still get very little.
If they plan to charge for sending e-mails, they MUST have an ulterior motive. $$$???
Most e-mail has spam filters, like yahoo and excite. I would think most will use those if they want to eliminate spam.

And what would happen with virus-induced spam who would pay there?????????

If they can come up with the software to actually stop you from sending email if you don't pay. Then they surely can come up with software to stop spam without charging someone per email. Isn't this ironic?

Bill Gates: "Yes, the only way we can stop someone from sending an email is by charging the person." uhh, ok.
Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed

You know I have been thinking,

This plan will not work because spammers will just send one email out to all of their victims thus only having to pay 1 penny for their entire list. Unless you are charged by the number of people that you send to which again would suck for the common man. I just don't think that this will work.

HowardRoark~~
excellent links. I appreciate your research

Or, and if this hasnt already been said somewhere before, they could charge a fee for unsolicited email. Sort of like a harassment charge or something.

......or they could just shut down all the 'penis enlargement' companies. That would do away with Half of all spam worldwide.

Stupid idea, grats microsoft. I don't know about anybody else, but I never get spam on my isp email address. They do a good job I guess.

Originally posted by ultra_phoenix
The email server just have to have your contact list, and when an email is incomming, if the sender adress is not in your list, the message is rejected BY the server .

I rather would, as a webmaster, want to 'catch' all misstypes and misdirected emails that would otherwised be rejected by the server.

My opinion is this, if it occur's, will do two things,...

1 - Drive up the cost for spammer services. If price were the solution, it will take more than a penny per mail, to deter a mass marketer. And force the provider market to look for new and more devious ways to meet their customers needs.

2 - Provide yet another way to choke the internet of it's freedoms. How is the US going to charge the non-US spam provider's? They are not plain and simple. It will just be an outsourced offshore industry then.


And if this does more than just raise the price of the internet, hopefully this means that server and ISP provider's can now stop the 'censorship at their discretion', and begin allowing for a less restricted email pathway.

One last minute thought, is that spammers also use phantom IP's, and 'dump' into pre-detected open relay mail server's, not of their ownership.

These are exploits of the web structure, and admin mistakes of the server sysops.

Charging to send email will not effect the spammers using this method of delivery.

It seems to me that the solution would not be to charge you at the SMTP (sending) server, but rather at the POP (receiving) server. For instance when you use your Server A to send an email to someone at Server B, then B is the one that charges you. Of course, they'd have to figure out how to route the charge back through A, which considering the numbers of servers is a logistical nightmare.

The problem of people writing their own servers and using them can be addressed by implementing a form of "server authentication", or a master list of authentic, legitimate servers. They already do this for SSL certificates; why not SMTP servers?

Also, I heard that the idea of "paying" for email is not restricted to just monetary payment. Gates mentioned another idea, where your computer would be forced to perform 10 seconds of computation before the mail is sent. That way spammers couldn't send 1000 emails a second. To send a million emails would take ten million seconds, or 115.74 days. Spam problem solved.

Would you all be willing to give up 10 seconds of computing time, in order to stop the spam deluge?