Penny Black Project Investigates Sender-Pays E-mail

Anonymous Coward writes "The Inquirer reports: Microsoft contemplating charging for emails. 'MICROSOFT IS UNFOLDING something it calls the Penny Black project in which people sending emails might have to pay for the privilege.' Microsoft's explanation of the project is here: The Penny Black Project." There are a lot of things going on at Microsoft Research -- no guarantee that particular ones are going to be released in the real world. (And Microsoft isn't the only party interested in sender-pays, or at least sender-risks-paying systems.)

Comments

I already pay for my emails

[Anonymous Coward]

its about $50 a month. fortunately it also includes the rest of my access.

Clarification

[Xeth]

We're considering several currencies for payment: CPU cycles, memory cycles...

So, Microsoft is just considering writing an extra inefficient mail protocol?

Re:Why not?

[stevejsmith]

You obviously don't work at the University of Pennsylvania and have to deal with 70-year-old Slovenian professors who write books like "The Demographics of Leisure," do you? I didn't even know that 166 MHz laptops could even run Netscape 4!

Re:Wow this article isn't what I expected.

[kasperd]

I get about 500 a day (across 12 accounts)

I once got 36 million in 4 days. The spammer thought I had an open relay... I didn't. I hope the intended recipients do not miss their spam.