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What Should Be Done About Spam

Started by deedee, March 18, 2003, 08:17:18 AM

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deedee

A list member on the WS Users Group mailing list made the following comments --

QuoteI am bothered by spam and as you may recall believe that the best solution is to tax it.  If the spammers had to spend a penny a spam, it would just about eliminate it.  I doubt this will happen though, as it would require an act of Congress and spammers have most of that timid bunch in their back pockets.

I too am bothered by spam and find some of it appalling. I was interested to discover that legitimate on-line marketers (and apparently there are some) also want to see it stopped.

One of the things they listed as creating problems for them was the fact that they'd get bounced from their current mail service provider as soon as a lot of mail was being returned as undeliverable. As a consequence, they couldn't update their mailing lists and eliminate those people who didn't want to be on them.

They've made the suggestion, and I think it's a good one, that the mail service providers should charge senders for any advertising sent to their customers or block it altogether if the advertiser refuses to pay.

I believe one other list member indicated that his ISP was doing this and using the money to give receivers of paid-for spam discounts on their monthly fees. When the amount of spam was large enough, this even eliminated the monthly fee altogether for some months.

I think this would have a bigger effect on spammers than simply taxing them. The main thing is that they would know that their mail would be stopped at its destination unless they paid, so it would be a big waste of time for them to send it at all.

Legitimate marketers assume that there's going to be out-of-pocket expense and have paid in the past and continue to pay postage for mailings via the postal service anyway.

I prefer this to be handled by the marketplace rather than the government.

deedee
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