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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.)
Well, yes, but from what I understand this pile of junk mail supports the post office. Now spam supports no one and steals resources from everybody's networks.
Also, junk mailers tend to be pretty good about removing you from their lists precisely because it costs money to send junk mail. When it costs money, they will not send it to someone who resents them enough to call with removal request. Again, spam has no such insentive... your email becomes more valuable with "active" mark, that's all.
Actually, I just wanted to make sure that the submission wasn't misinterpreted to mean that "Microsoft" was planning to implement this system, and that it's still ("just") a research project.
It sounds like a decent idea to me, but with certain thorns. The biggest one is What about legitimate, truly-opt-in mailing lists? Email is a genuinely low-cost communication method for non-profit groups (not just official tax-exempt non-profit groups,I mean all kinds of clubs, associations, groups of friends, etc.), and a per-email fee intended to hinder junkmail could also pinch a lot of people I wish it wouldn't. Maybe in the end that would be a fair tradeoff, but as spam filters get better (and ISPs get more aggressive about blocking spam on their side), I'm skeptical of that.
Also, some people send a lot of short emails; does charging per-email make sense vs. (for instance) per-byte?
And as for my opinions of Microsoft, well, you're free to read my earlier comments about Microsoft if you want to learn that;)
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
RTFA, this isn't about charging for email use. This is about making people ACCOUNTABLE for excessive email abuse (i.e. spam). Just one of the options being considered is charging money for it, also considered are cpu cycles, etc.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
It seemed to me that they were being careful not to pinch those people, by proposing tokens which get cancelled by the recipient if the email is genuine. They also talked about whitelists in the article, which I suppose is a method of automating the token cancelling.
EarthLink is absolutely nothing like AOL or MSN. They are a real ISP, and don't use any proprietary protocols. I can use EarthLink in Linux, FreeBSD, QNX, and virtually any other OS available.
Can't say the same about MSN/AOL.
Yes, I do remember the good old days. When sites loaded fast, when Netscape 2.x dominated, and there wasn't this huge commercialization of the Internet. Nothing against commercialization, but when people start wanting to charge for a basic service of the net (Email), its gone too far.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
>Well, yes, but from what I understand this pile of >junk mail supports the post office. Now spam >supports no one and steals resources from >everybody's networks.
Actually, junk mail is sent at bulk mailing rates so low that in fact it costs the post office money, which they then pass on in the form of 1st class mail stamps. All postal rate increases have to be set by congress, and the direct mailing industry has a powerful lobby, so it is very difficult to get those bulk rates increased.
The idea of using CPU cycles as payment is not new, check out Hash Cash.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
"Actually, junk mail is sent at bulk mailing rates so low that in fact it costs the post office money, which they then pass on in the form of 1st class mail stamps."
Spoken like someone who has zero experience with bulk mailing.
"Bulk mail" is cheaper for the simple reason that it is a labor-sharing program between the USPS and the mailier. The mailer pre-sorts their mail (hence the official name "presorted mail") by region before handing it off to the post office. The finer the level of sortation, the less the mailer pays in postage. A mailer that goes so far as to sort down to the carrier route (putting the pieces in the tray in the order the delivery person goes down the streets) pays considerably less than mailers that sort just by three-digit zone. This is sorting that the USPS itself doesn't have to pay for, hence the smaller postage.
And on top of that, the mailer can elect to drop the mail into the mailstream closer to the delivery point. Mailers pay less if they're willing to drop the mail off in the destination zone themselves, and they even have the option of dropping the presorted mail off at the destination post office.
The price of first class mail versus standard mail doesn't subsidize standard mail, it pays for services that don't come with standard mail. Services like "forward to the recipient's new address," "return to sender" and the like. This is why putting "return to sender" on those CDs AOL sends through standard mail doesn't do a damn thing; they didn't pay for the return-to-sender option.
"All postal rate increases have to be set by congress,"
No, they're set by a board of governors appointed by the White House and approved of by Congress. Congress can only say "yes" or "no" to rate change proposals. Anybody that wants to make alterations to rates have to go through the board of governors.
"and the direct mailing industry has a powerful lobby,"
Yes, direct mailers have representation in the board of what the USPS refers to as "stakeholders," but they are far from the only stakeholders (ie. customers) represented there. For example, all bills must be mailed at first class rates, which means utility companies are interested in keeping first class postage down.
But this is all besides the point. There is no cross-subsidization between rates as you are suggesting. That is flat-out illegal and frequent GAO investigations have shown that this is not happening (and I dare you to find a link with unrefutable evidence to the contrary) (No, intentionally misleading "libertarian" opinion pieces don't count). And even if they were compelled to keep standard mail rates lower, the USPS still has the problem of paying for itself, as postal operations aren't subsidized by taxes.
All in all, the USPS runs a heck of a lot more reputible operation than, say, any Baby Bell or CATV operation. They don't have anywhere near the public oversight the USPS has, which gives them more freedom to abuse their monopoly powers. And in the end, these corporations care about their investors far more than their customers.
And if you want to talk about powerful lobbying groups, take a look at all the money UPS is throwing at Congress to have the whole thing shut down. The same UPS that has raised their rates higher and more often than the USPS. Hey, it keeps the shareholders happy...
Rich.
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