John "jbob" Bobowicz's Blog

Microsoft says we should pay for email. When was it ever free?

In a March 4th article on cnn.com titled "Paying for E-Mail May Be Anti-Spam Tactic", Anick Jesdanun reported that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, among others, is proposing a per message charge on email messages in order to combat SPAM.

It appears that companies, like Microsoft, Hashcash, and Goodwill Systems, are more interested in making money off of the volume than in solving the problem. Score one for capitalism, zero for customer service.

It is dissapointing that the article's author did not point out that email is not free today. We pay for email one way or another. The dial-up or broadband services that we need to access our "free" Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts is not free. The monthly membership fees to AOL and MSN that include email in their service is notoriously not free.

Passing the cost of SPAM onto customers is a slap in the face and adds insult to injury. It is shortcomings in the mail systems that allow for SPAM to circulate. Fix the problem.

Here's a suggestion: If ISP's took some responsibility fo their mail servers, they could revoke accounts that generate spam and they could provide their customers with intelligent firewall capabilities for fighting spam. For example, allowing me the ability to control who can email me (like I can do with Instant Messenger). Some email systems and clients can do this. If I subscribe to a mail list, I would need to configure my account to let that through.

Read the article yourself and share your thoughts and conclusions in our community discussion.

Comments

• join the Slashdot Thread
  There are, of course, many other venues to discuss these topics. As interesting as the topic of SPAM and email are, I would recommend that readers post to the March 5 thread on Slashdot .

  Posted by: daniel on March 07, 2004 at 09:33 AM

• Where's the Java?
  And what does this have to do with Java or java.net??

  Do Sun employees have any clue at all about what's relevant to the Java development community?

  Posted by: dukefetish on March 07, 2004 at 11:13 AM

• wrong impressions and Microsoft bashing...
  You've obviously either not read or understood the plan or don't want to understand it.

  The idea is to have the SENDER pay for email, which would kill the profit margins on spam making it unprofitable.

  Several ideas for this are floating around the web, some of which have the cost of sending passed on directly to the receiver so that on average most people would break even.

  Posted by: jwenting on March 07, 2004 at 12:12 PM

• Commenting on java.net is a pain in the ass
  This is my favorite quote from the story "Goodmail chief executive Richard Gingras said individuals might get to send a limited number for free, while mailing lists and nonprofit organizations might get price breaks." So really, what they're saying is that spammers would get price breaks. Now you're paying to send email, but still getting spam!

  Posted by: willpgayther on March 07, 2004 at 12:20 PM

• Where's the Java?
  I think "secure computing" concerns us all. Think outside of the box.

  Posted by: gonzo on March 08, 2004 at 12:08 AM

• Email has always been free.
  "We pay for email one way or another. The dial-up or broadband services that we need to access our "free" Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts is not free. The monthly membership fees to AOL and MSN that include email in their service is notoriously not free."

  Dialup/broadband services != email
  AOL/MSN membership != email

  I can use broadband without using email. I can use email without using broadband. The services you mention are not 'email', they are Internet access services.

  I can send as many emails as I like, and it costs me nothing - I would be paying for broadband anyway, regardless of whether I used it for email or not. I am paying for Internet access, but I am not paying for email.

  Actually I do pay Yahoo for a bigger mailbox, but even that does not consitute paid-for email. I am buying server space - the email server access is gratis.

  What is being proposed by Microsoft is to charge people for the ability to send email. This would be in addition to Internet access fees.
  

  Posted by: philwebster on March 08, 2004 at 03:08 AM

• wrong impressions and Microsoft bashing...
  jwenting said:
  > You've obviously either not read or understood the plan or don't want to understand it.
  > The idea is to have the SENDER pay for email

  Er, I hate to point it out, but most of us do send email... and if your point is that a micro-charge isn't a heavy burden for a home user, then consider those of us who run mailing lists.

  Posted by: david_kennedy on March 08, 2004 at 03:18 AM

• Where's the Java?
  It is still a tangent that has nothing to do with Java.

  > Think outside of the box.

  In your case, stop wandering around in the woods being clueless.

  Posted by: dukefetish on March 08, 2004 at 07:29 AM

• Where's the Java? Where ever you want it to be.
  Why so bitter?

  No need for grudges. One can pick how deep a pool one wishes to swim in. I choose the entire network ... end-to-end ... and I want it to be secure, as it should be, and pervassive. To that end, systems interoperability are paramont and standards compliance is the means.

  Posted by: gonzo on March 08, 2004 at 12:54 PM

• wrong impressions and Microsoft bashing...
  true, that's why some of these proposals have provisions for some form of "trusted sender" who could send without paymen.

  Problem with such a concept is that there's now ISPs which are run by spammers.
  As it would be ISPs policing the system (who else?) they could thus just trust themselves...

  In the end a solution will likely be found that's cost-neutral for most people while hurting largescale abusers which is the idea.

  Whether that would mean some specific body granting exception from payment for well behaved mailing lists or some form of mutual concent requirement (let's say any mail you want to send to more than 10 addresses needs explicit permission returned from each before it can be delivered) remains to be seen (but something like that would be hard if not impossible within SMTP and POP which would make acceptance difficult as most people are unlikely to switch to a different protocol before everyone else does too...).

  Posted by: jwenting on March 09, 2004 at 03:26 AM

• Email has always been free.
  This is just another prove that Gates never understood what internet is.
  If someone will charge e-mail, he will impose payment on a free protocol and on use of e-mail servers...I do not think either is possible in the real word.
  And even if this will happen a new free protocol and a new free generation of free servers will appear.
  Internet community is just more complex than Gates can imagine...

  Posted by: sorinr on March 09, 2004 at 04:10 AM

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