It also completely overlooks the fact that the really serious spammers don't
use their own accounts/ISPs to send their spam from. They rely on poorly
educated users to open dodgy e-mails, infect their PC with a worm/virus that
allows their machine to be used to send the spam from. Gullible innocents
will be the ones who suffer any penalty - financial or otherwise.
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Trent [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 February 2004 15:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Email Stamp - a proposed toll on email
This arrived in my inbox this morning. It is, of course, from a list I have
given permission to send me stuff (Peppers and Rogers)! I've Bccd the
author of the entire article (of which this is a snippet) with my thoughts
here. He may wish to subscribe and see what this list in the UK has to say
"People are very serious about this and I fully expect that within a year
companies will have to pay for using an ISP to send materials," says Sonia
Arrison, research analyst for San Francisco-based think tank Pacific
Research Institute. "Bill Gates said recently that the spam problem would be
solved within two years. I think he's being conservative. Everything is
pointing toward an economic solution because technology hasn't worked."
So, if people pay to send email the problem of spam is said to be about to
decrease.
Is that really so?
Currently an ISP will terminate a spammer's account after some provocation
and with sufficient proof of spamming activities. But, if the spammer paid
money to spam, what then? "I am so sorry, they have *paid* to send this
email. We make a fortune out of them, so we will not be terminating them,
thank you very much". That is a likely scenario. And that will not help
data subjects and their rights. In fact all that will happen is that bad
ISPs will protect bad spammers and make loads of money.
So far the spam fighting groups that I monitor are ambivalent about it, but
their attitudes are starting to harden against it
Tim Trent - Consultant
Direct: +44(0)1344 392644 Mobile:+44(0)7710 126618
email: [log in to unmask]
Marketing Improvement Limited, Abbey House, Grenville Place, Bracknell,
United Kingdom, RG12 1BP <http://www.marketingimprovement.com/>
http://www.marketingimprovement.com
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