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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.)
Are they going to start doing a subscription service for Windows Update? Make you pay so if you want to apply patches the easy way(In IE I presume)?
No, this is about charging for email use. Spammers will always use open mail relays that are off shore to send spam. I can't think of any that will use Microsoft's servers to send it.
This is about making huge corporate profits by putting a small charge on a service that MILLIONS of people use. It' is all about greed nothing more.
The only thing that is different is that Microsoft expects to take your money and have you thank them for it!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!