What? Now he wants us to pay for email?!

[Shannon]

If the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying "stamps" for e-mail.

Many Internet analysts worry, though, that turning e-mail into an economic commodity would undermine its value in democratizing communication. But let's start with the math: At perhaps a penny or less per item, e-mail postage wouldn't significantly dent the pocketbooks of people who send only a few messages a day. Not so for spammers who mail millions at a time.

Though postage proposals have been in limited discussion for years -- a team at Microsoft Research has been at it since 2001 -- Gates gave the idea a lift in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Details came last week as part of Microsoft's anti-spam strategy. Instead of paying a penny, the sender would "buy" postage by devoting maybe 10 seconds of computing time to solving a math puzzle. The exercise would merely serve as proof of the sender's good faith.

 

[Solid Fro]

How would you implement something like that? Set up your own mail server and give a virtual middle finger to Mr. Gates.

 

[Acid X]

Hmm. Seems like an okay idea, actually. As long as they dont start charging actual money for these "e-stamps", there shouldnt really be a problem, and it would keep spam down... Though i don't see how they can incorporate it into all email services. Heh.

 

[Sage]

Yeah, I just saw a similar article at CNN.

 

[darklegion_ca]

Originally posted by Viper Zero
How would you implement something like that? Set up your own mail server and give a virtual middle finger to Mr. Gates.

you mean this middle finger

 

[darklegion_ca]

damn forgot to put the pic

 

[Burnout]

Old news.

But, yeah, I don't think they could do that. The fact that people don't have to pay for it now, means that even though there migt be less spam, it would still cost extra time.

Time is money.

 

[Super-Supra]

Originally posted by Sage
Yeah, I just saw a similar article at CNN.

I read that one yesterday aswell.

 

[toyomatt84]

Yay! Microshaft is owned by Bill Hates!

 

[pimp racer]

Man this is pretty old but yeah this is a stupid idea.

 

[Z E V]

Anybody ever notice that all of Microsoft's ideas are predicated on them owning the entire market...

 

[Pako]

The problem is that most spammers steal resources from someone elses mail server. The poor guy with a little server for his Counter Striker Clan would get a bill for $10,000 for last weeks spamming.

It would be pretty tough to enforce when everyone with a router or server is 'giving' their resources away for every packet and arp table update that passes through their equipment on their way to the next hop.