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On Futureproofing Spamhaus
BMcWilliams writes "Spamhaus director Steve Linford announced a new funding plan Tuesday. According to Linford's announcement, large ISPs and big corporate users of the Spamhaus zone transfer service (renamed the Spamhaus Data Feed Service) will be required to pay an annual subscription fee ranging between $190 and $14,500.(The free public-query mirrors will continue to exist.) The point of the new plan is to ensure that 'the millions of users who rely on our anti-spam systems can be assured we'll be here for as long as spammers plague the Internet'."
Heh... I love it, it shows that not too many folks understand about how Spamhaus operates, and may be relying on distant memories of the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS). Both organizations, Spamhaus and MAPS, have operated on a free-to-all, volunteer-run system, accepting donations where they could be had to fund themselves. Back in July 2001, MAPS moved to a fee-based for all (except for educational and single operator systems, which could sign a waiver and have free access) model, while Steve Linford kept MAPS in its free-for-all state, where it continues to operate today.
However, several large users, including world governments, have voiced their opinions that they love what Spamhaus has done, however, how can they rely on a free service that may not be in operation in a year or two due to legal shenanigans like what Richter is pulling against Spamcop??
That, in a nutshell, is what's happening here. No one has ever paid to use Spamhaus other than through voluntary contributions. This changes nothing, the blocklist service and website will still remain free to all comers, and those that have large userbases that want to depend on Spamhaus as a going concern can help by paying a fee for use of a zone transfer service to their own database or dns servers.
Simple, ain't it?? The little guys win, the big guys win, the spammers lose.
If Spamhaus eliminated Spam, Steve Linford would be the first one dancing. He'd probably get a knighthood, but I think he'd prefer a good night's sleep.
MS claims that Hotmail receives 2 Billion spams a day. (That's 2x10^9 to you friends across the puddle). I don't see that going away, more's the pity.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Don't they mean, as long as e-mail exists; in it's current form, anyway?
Even then a lot of businesses may actually save money through reducing bandwidth costs due to spam. I hope they don't force those savings onto you... :)
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Are you suggesting that ISP customers are entitled to a service for nothing?? If customers are unhappy with a (probably tiny) increase in ISP charges to address the problem, they can always switch to a cheaper ISP ... and
learn to enjoy their spam.
I get maybe one spam e-mail a day.
And how many extra spam e-mail do you think you would you receive if AOL stopped using the Spamhaus RBL?? (If AOL doesn't use the RBL the question is moot anyway.)
If a corporate IS department is running their own mail servers, it would be wll worth the money. Transfer the lists into the server and check all incoming mail instantly instead of the latency caused by going to Spamhaus. The bandwidth and time saved for someone like GM, GE, Siemens,..... Thats a lot of money saved. $14,500 is pocket change to them anyway, and if it saved $50,000 over a year, thats a good return. I'd bet it would save a lot more than 50K though.
The fact that it keeps Spamhaus a viable concern is another plus.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
1) Everybody has a use for this. If you are part of an organization that uses a paid for spamhaus, then you have a use for it.
2) Spamhaus recommends organizations that get 200,000+ emails a day sign up for the service. Conservatively, I think, we can estimate that would mean 100,000 users ( some get considerably more, most not at all ). At the high end, it's 14,500 a year. So, 14500/100000 = 14.5 cents a YEAR per user. I'll give you a fiver, if you shut up about the cost for the next 30+ years about it.
3) Say I'm way off, and the number is more like 20,000 users. That puts us at about 73 cents per year per user.
If you really can't afford that, how the hell are you able to sit here on the internet and gripe about it?
4) Spam, annually, costs you way more. Or, more accurately, they cost your provider more, which in turn, gets passed on to you. So what they are doing is a cost saving measure.
So, in closing, let me say this: Stop bitching, you are wrong.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I may be an idiot, but it seems to me that most organisations could justify any of the amounts listed by doing some simple cost benefit analysis.
My understanding is that Spamhaus allows you to blackhole IP blocks that are known to tolerate\encourage spam.
If you step back and work out the cost of bandwidth to accept all of that spam, versus the cost to pay Spamhaus to blackhole it, it probably works out in favour of paying for Spamhaus.
Here in