The next step in spam blocking: tolls
This was inevitable - email "stamps" that will let senders bypass spam filters. AOL and Yahoo are both doing it:
The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. The two companies also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.
AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a special bulk e-mail box or strip them of images and Web links.
There are a couple of downsides to this approach though. First, the initial stages of this will likely see multiple "pay to send" implementations, which will be a pain to deal with. That won't be easy to solve, either - email (unlike postal mail) isn't run by governments, so getting a single, unified system that works across borders won't be easy.
The second problem is bigger, IMHO. These fees guarantee that mail will bypass the filters of the provider (Yahoo, AOL) - but not that the email will bypass any client filters in place. You can get a Yahoo address and have it forwarded to another personal account, or use POP to get your mail downloaded outside a browser. At which point, a client side filter could ensnare the email. For example, mail sent to my cincom address has to first get past the corporate filter, and then past the client side filter on my end. I've had mail get snagged by one and not the other, as well as by both.
The upshot: the fee you pay does not actually guarantee delivery. Which is going to be a problem.
Comments
Why It Won't Work
[Daniel ] February 4, 2006 18:48:24.984
I see this as just a way to fill the mail providers pockets.
I'm not getting junk mail. If anyone chooses to sit behind AOL or Yahoo, I think they're already soliciting their email out to be junked. Why should I let Yahoo spam my mailbox? That's why I switched to gmail. Does Google email me a promotional email spam message about their latest and greatest? no. I've never once gotten an email from google. So if Yahoo and AOL want to start charging people for email, I have a feeling people will just continue to migrate to gmail.
and further - i'm not going to email anyone that sits behind a yahoo or aol or any email address that charges per email. period.
That's just patching a broken design
[ cdegroot] February 5, 2006 5:15:14.252
Comment by cdegroot
SMTP is so broken that it should be banned from the Internet, in fact. It is based on totally wrong assumptions, that were very valid two decades ago, but aren't anymore. This sort of stuff is at best just a finger in the dyke - I'm Dutch, so I know a lot about dykes, and I can tell you that a finger is a very ineffective means of plugging a hole in a dyke.
http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html has an alternative, which starts with the right approach - the cost of delivery should be with the sender. Couple that with refusing to pick up on dial-up/dynamic IP's, and it becomes reasonably easy to blacklist ISP's that host spammers.
Patching SMTP is, well, just the sort of crap that managers come up with.
cool!
[Lex Spoon] February 6, 2006 3:30:57.042
Payment by the sender strikes me as the only plausible approach to both allowing unsolicited mail but not being deluged with ridiculous quantities of it. I have not read the details of their particular systems, but I'm glad to see it start happening.
I'm also fascinated that AOL and Yahoo have come up with an email service I don't get using free software.... I hope that a more a spammer-pays system becomes available more generally, now that these guys show how to do it.
Rebates to the receiver
[Jeff Hallman] February 6, 2006 12:41:28.302
Postage paid by the sender should be variable. Receivers set a minimum price. Email bearing less than that price is not delivered, and the sender is not charged. Receivers can also sort their mail by amount of postage paid, ignoring the messages that the sender apparently didn't value very highly.
While postage is paid to the email delivery service, over time competition between services will result in rebates of some of the postage to the receivers.