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Yahoo Revives Pay-Per-Email, With Charitable Twist
holy_calamity writes "Yahoo research have started a private beta of a scheme that resurrects the idea of charging people to send email to cut spam. Centmail users pay $0.01 for each message they send, with the money going to a charity of their choice. The hope is that the feel good effect of donating to charity will reduce the perceived cost of paying for mail and encourage mass adoption, making it possible for mail filters to build in recognition of Centmail stamps."
Do Good. Fight Spam.
So it sounds like an 'opt-in' program for doing otherwise would be suicide by a mail provider. And since it's opt-in, I highly doubt the spammers will be doing the opting. So unless your penny is going to an anti-spam organization, how are you fighting Spam?
Also, I'm not too clear on how this would work. Wouldn't it require a certificate-like central authentication server? And wouldn't this increase in traffic just exacerbate the situation of too much traffic? Especially if all Spam starts to come with fake 'stamps.'
My work here is dung.
Now here's something both the spammers and the ISP's will love. I presume somewhere in their long-term plan is a means of getting rid of all those pesky renegades who run their own email server and don't opt into this scam
I'm glad that goodwill and fuzzy feelings are able to cut transaction costs; because they'll be the real killer at $0.01 a pop.
I assume, because of this problem, that they'll either be billing you when your tab reaches some worthwhile value, and trusting you in the meantime, or forcing you to buy in large blocks ahead of time(which would be super annoying, goodwill or no).
I'll set myself up as a charity, and have the system pull money out of my account, and put into the my other - er, the charity's - account. Now all my spam is blessed.
Ibid.