Would you Warranty Your Email?

Kurt writes "A team from the University of Michigan is proposing an economic solution to spam. Instead of relying on technical solutions or government regulations, they use a sender warranty system. In some cases, they argue, it can even be superior to a perfect filter with zero cost, and no errors. Their working paper is available at SSRN. With the caveat that some infrastructure is necessary (isn't it always?), they also claim their approach restores control to the recipient, halts spam, and creates a marketplace for valuable information exchange."

Comments

Would you Warranty Your Slashdot Posts?

[inertia187]

I wonder how well this would work if everyone on Slashdot could warranty their posts. It could be implemented by adding a checkbox next to Post Anonymously, call it Post With Warranty. Your comment then gets bumped up to "+5, via Warranty." If people think it's not worthy of being +5, and they have mod points, they can moderate it down. If they mod it down, they take subscription points from the poster. If the metamoderator disagrees, the moderation is reversed as expected *and* the subscription points are returned to the poster.

I think this could work. But it sounds like a pain to implement.

(fp)

A Simple Solution to the spam epidemic?

[norite]

100% of the spam I get comes from America - Maybe over there they should simply legislate against the sending of unsolicited commercial emails, like they have here in Europe.

Then people who get this nonsense in their inboxes can get together and take the companies who use spammers (and the spammers themselves) to market their junk to court. Once the companies who use this service start getting served with class action court orders to stop or else, they should soon get the message.

Of course, there's nothing to stop the spammers moving/subcontracting to e.g. India or some other place where sending unsolicited emails isn't illegal, but it's a start. Ultimately we can hopefully have a worldwide ban against the sending of unsolicited commercial emails.

"Children should be seen and not heard."

[iota]

I don't think that free speech requires anonimity ... Basically, you add accountability.

Which would lead to --
"Children should be seen and not heard." (Because they cannot be held accountable for what they say.)
"The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down." (Because you can't voice dissent without drawing attention to yourself and your family.)

Effective free speech requires anonymity -- There's usually needed a period of underground "pot-stirring" in order to add momentum to a movement.
For example: Let's say your boss regularly beats the shit out of you when you walk in the door in the morning. But it's your first job, so you don't know if it's normal or not. But your family depends on your income. You could post anonymously on some forum asking "Hey everyone! Do your bosses kick your asses in the morning like mine?" / or sign your name and likely get a bigger ass whopping along with being fired.