Slashdot Mirror
E-mail Tax As Way Of Preventing Spam
scubacuda writes "This FT article criticizes current attempts to regulate spam. Re: Lessig's bounty-on-spammer proposal: 'This is a terrible idea that will make millionaires of two classes of people: reprobates who illegally maraud through others' hard drives; and those who have built their expertise about spam by peddling it, 'He considers the recent FTC spam conference "barking up the wrong tree," and thinks that the simplest way to regulate spam is through a tax: 'This requires smashing some myths....But, very soon, the Internet should turn into a penny post, with a levy of 1 cent per letter. This would cost the average e-mailer about $10 a year. Small companies would pay bills in the hundreds of dollars; very large ones in the thousands. And spammers would be driven to honest employment. The tax could be made progressive by exempting, say, those who sent fewer than 5,000 letters a year. The proceeds could go to maintain and expand bandwidth.'"
I allready pay for my damn e-mail a million times over allready, be it through advertising banners, direct to the service provider through a monthly fee via my domain name hosting provider or via the cost of my existing internet connection. I'm sorry, but this is more off the peg than the first bunch of useless ideas. Why the hell should I pay ANOTHER tax for something I allready pay for? yet another pointless contentious idea that means nothing at all and has no possible viable grounds for existing or being implemented.
How to stop spam?
JUST BAN ALL OPEN SMTP RELAY SERVERS!
Just make it illegal to run one while offering bounty to those who catch people running one.
There is NO valid reason for an SMTP server to be left open. Laziness dosen't count. it should be illegal.