It's Time To Start Charging For Email!
 

Seriously... They was on about it years ago and I think it might be the only solution to the current SPAM problem.

It could be 0.001 cent per email or something. Just enough to make it extremely cheap for legitimate users and extremely expensive for spammers. The price would need capping at government level so it didn't increase above inflation ever.

An even better idea would be that 100% of the profits would be returned to the people, maybe a charity or some local projects that will benefit communities...

What do you think?

(I'm guessing lots of you will hate the idea... I know it goes against the free nature of the web etc... but still... discuss)

It wouldn't stop spam, only lower the spammers income slightly, and make everyone else hate sending emails.

Yeah, that'll fly.












































Not.

Ok... well, spammers aren't making a dollar per email that's for sure, so it would be a matter of finding a charging level that would make all but the most profitable spammers go out of business.

There has to be a solution.

They're probably send even MORE emails, just to keep their profits up.

Uh ok, so how do you propose to control an extremely basic open server to server protocol like SMTP?

If a system existed to monitor and charge money for every email sent then it would also be anle to prevent spam...

Matt

As long ISPs make money on spam measured in bytes, it will not work.

Right now I'm sat deleting bounceback after bounceback and spam after spam and I'm left with about 500 emails still that's after all the filtering I can do..

Scattered amongst them are my legitimate emails... This SUCKS... I would GLADLY pay to sort out this situation.

OMG... I've got it....!!!

What about an "opt-in" scheme whereby anybody that emails you HAS to pay a certain fee, maybe a cent an email, BUT if you decide that you wanted their email (for example, they are on your white list and or you click a certain button) they receive ALL of their money back for that message.

THAT is the solution my friends. OMG!

Think about it.

Your friend Jim emails you, costs him nothing. Big nasty shitty spammer emails you, it costs him a cent, or 10 cents or whatever. If he isn't a spammer, you can elect to return his money.

This way, the community would decide what emails were valid and valuable to them and those that didn't offer value - would have to be paid for by the sender!

I think that's a good idea. This issue needs debate!

Yeah this is one of the proposed methods. I just can't see how the technicalities of it would work though. It seems impossible.

That's a proposed method? Oh... I thought I'd come up with a unique idea there...

I guess I just followed my logical thoughts to the same place the boffins must have.

GREAT idea anyway!

It would have to happen on let's say an ISP level.

It could work maybe like telephone networks do now. If I call a mobile phone on a different network, it makes no difference to me, and I don't know how they split the payment between networks but they manage to do so ok, this would just also include an instant refund option.

Another 250 spammy shitbag emails since I last wrote I had 500 to wade through. This is bollox.

So you want to charge me money to send an email from my server? And this money would go where? It would and could never happen we all live in different countrys for a start so every country would have to do it. I would be charged for every member you signed up to one of my sites? This has to be one of the stupidest ideas and goes against freedom of speech on the internet. Every user on the internet would have to pay to email important documents. The easier way to stop spam is have a different email address for personal use and one for signing up to sites with

LOL Like that's going to stop mailers...

OK thats the stupidest idea I've heard this year , but hey look at the bright side it's still early in the year

You a surfer or something?

What about Email addresses for my business.

Hang on... Ahh I guess people aren't reading the rest of the thread.... You're answering the intial post. Ok...

If you are CHARGED to Email ME, then you PAY. If I decide it was legit, you get your money back. Problem solved. Done.

mailers always will be there, no matter what

find spammers ... hang spammers ... sell tickets

I think it will not work.

I remember seeing a proposal that would "tax" in CPU usage rather than $. The sender would need to perform a computationally complex challenge in order to successfully deliver the message, thus significantly slowing down bulk emailers.

This is a better idea and one which people can adopt gradually. Pay-per-email would never work since initial adopters would just lose customers to ISPs that don't charge.

Another method to reduce spam is to return a temporary error upon first delivery attempt, which will queue the email on the server trying to deliver it. Most email servers will attempt redelivery within a short period (say 30 mins) but bulk emailers don't usually bother. If there is a second attempt to deliver the same mail then the IP is whitelisted and further deliveries are allowed to come through unheeded. Bulk mailers don't try a second time so they're never whitelisted.

http://greylisting.org/
works pretty well, cuts about 80% of the spam
use spamassasin for the other 20%
I haven't received a spam email in a few months I almost miss them :1orglaugh

charging for emails wont work because a lot of spammers use zombie machines to send out spam and someone else will pay for them.
Let alone the fact that it can hardly be implemented on a global scale.

i don't think that will ever work....

Oh yes it is!

They're not mailers, they're spammers.

Just kill them or something. They're not fit to live.

that will only completely kill the medium. there would be so many free alternatives that no one would bother.

Don't think this will happen anytime soon.

next tme you have a brain fart keep it to yourself.
you are sticking up the interweb.

Sounds like it would then cost 0.001 to send spam.

this can never work..!

If anything it would improve spams responce rate

Only sending to valids, people would be more avid to check their email at first thinking its not spam