This is new... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

15 Apr 1998

...
 It's easy to blame novice users and get rich quick
spammers, but I can't
agree with you.  I look on the 'Net as evolution in action.  Right now
we have the feeding frenzy of spammers drowning us in unwanted email.
The easy, and wrong, solution is to force them to stop.  The right way
is to make it uneconomical for them to send spam.  How? I don't really
know, I just ignore it, sort of like background static noise on a
shortwave radio. In general, it is ignored.  I know someone, who recently got
online.  They
own a small company, and were offered 15,000 eMail addresses at .01 per
person.  That sounded like such a great deal!  So, they sent the e-mail, and
got 200 eMails that bounced, then in 3 months, had recieved 6 orderes for $5
and over 500 eMails about the bad business practices of spamming.  They knew
no better, but still...
...
 But consider, what kind of response rate do spammers
get?  Now junk
snail mailers have to actually pay per piece, although at a reduced
rate.  They have to make the junk mail attractive to readers so they can
get a high enough response rate to justify the mailing.  Maybe we need
the same mechanism for mass commercial postings.  In other words, the
ISP specifies in the terms of service that mass commercial mailings (aka
spam) are charged at the same mailing rates as the local post office,
something around 20 cents per item.  Now you have a legal means to get
back if the ISP catches a spammer, because they are liable for the
contracted costs. Spam should be illegal.  The commercialization of the
Internet's what we
needed for a long time: a worldwide information resource.  Allowing people
to profit by it (by ads, etc.) gives you more information available, and a
wider user base.  Even sci-fi writers didn't envision a global information
resource like ours for another ten to twenty years.  Let's face it: Until we
go past the money-stage, for many things to become popular, they seemingly
MUST be commercial.