You've just described what we do at Boxbe. If you are not on my whitelist, you have to take a captcha test or pay. We do take a 25% commision on the fee, but 75% goes to the mail recipient. We use DKIM and SPF to help figure out whether the sender is legitimate or not.
Randy Stewart
randy@boxbe.com
[Disclosure: I work for Boxbe.com]
It's not about the money, it's about control
on
Hotmail vs Goodmail
·
· Score: 1
[Disclosure: I work for Boxbe [boxbe.com], a market based solution to spam]
I commented on the previous Goodmail story but I'll say it again, it's all about control. Goodmail and Hotmail control who can and cannot get into your inbox. Not a good thing.
Using payment as a way to ensure messages get through is a viable solution. Most filtering techniques for spam have failed. For every new spam technique anti-spam software developers stop, several new techniques pop up. The financial incentives for spammers to continue doing what they are doing is very high. Thus, the arms race continues. You might have noticed, we're losing badly against spammers.
That said, the incentives for the Goodmail and Hotmail systems are all wrong. As mentioned above, the only people that will pay are big marketers. While this certainly cuts out true spammers (Viagra, Cialis, penny stocks, etc), it also cuts out you and me. The money collected ought to go to me, not my ISP. Worse, my ISP shouldn't control who can reach me and who can't.
To CmdrTaco's point, Boxbe has a very similar methodology for auto-whitelisting mailing list and recipients of mail that I send. We use an individualized code appended in the email sig file, thus ensuring that people that I email won't receive a challenge message. This solution works very well for me.
[Disclosure: I work for Boxbe, a market based solution to spam]
Any market based system that puts the ISP in control has potential to leave its users high and dry. Can I trust my ISP to make decisions for me about who is a good sender and who is a bad one? I don't know. While I don't think ISPs are evil, I know they are desperate to curb spam.
Using payment as a way to ensure messages get through is a viable solution. Most filtering techniques for spam have failed. For every new spam technique anti-spam software developers stop, several new techniques pop up. The financial incentives for spammers to continue doing what they are doing is very high. Thus, the arms race continues. You might have noticed, we're losing badly against spammers.
That said, the incentives for the Goodmail system are all wrong. As mentioned above, the only people that will pay are big marketers. While this certainly cuts out true spammers (Viagra, Cialis, penny stocks, etc), it also cuts out you and me. The money collected ought to go to me, not my ISP.
The only way to get incentives aligned are to include the recipient in the payment plan. Let me set the price and get most of the money. Most ISPs would be happy to receive a cut of that as well as cut down on spam email. As Spy der Mann mentions above, the cost of protecting users against spam is very high.
In snail mail at least the junkmailers pay for the mail. With SPAM, they're using YOUR resources to do business. Not to mention promoting the use of botnets and viruses and spyware. They're disrupting the whole e-mail system, don't you get it? About 90% of e-mail I get is spam. That's 10-to-1 ratio.
Additionally, CmdrTaco raises an important issue about people who run mailing lists - would you pay $1000 to an ISP to continue running an email list? Or would you simply shut it down? Leaving the ISP in control of the white list potentially leaves a lot of people out in the cold.
If I control my white list, I wouldn't make CmdrTaco pay (unless he starts spamming me:-) ).
I want to control my white list. I want to control what comes into my inbox.
My time is valuable. If emailers waste my time, they should have to pay me, not my ISP.
Our solution currently works as a forwarding service and with Gmail. We'll be rolling out Yahoo! integration and domain level protection very soon.
Wow, such heated debate. Not a lot that I can add to the conversation except that I'm running a blog about ditching cable for a combination of recording over the air television and using iTunes, called ditchingcable.com.
For me, while I'm recording OTA television, I do supplement the recordings with an occasional download and a subscription to the Daily Show.
A few things to consider
1. Do you watch reruns?
I don't. So, that really throws off the numbers. Networks and cable channels alike tend to run their repeats at the same time (summer time, holidays, etc). When I'm not paying for cable, I'm not paying for those times of year.
2. Do you watch sports?
I don't, but if you do, you're kind of screwed without cable television. Monday Night Football isn't even on broadcast television anymore. And good luck finding hockey or basketball at all.
For folks like me, who like television but can't be bothered with ads, reruns, sports, schedule conflicts, and appointment television, I can't imagine life before PVRs, but now, I'm really wondering why I paid those high cable bills for something that I used so little.
Slashdot Mirror
You've just described what we do at Boxbe. If you are not on my whitelist, you have to take a captcha test or pay. We do take a 25% commision on the fee, but 75% goes to the mail recipient. We use DKIM and SPF to help figure out whether the sender is legitimate or not. Randy Stewart randy@boxbe.com [Disclosure: I work for Boxbe.com]
[Disclosure: I work for Boxbe [boxbe.com], a market based solution to spam]
I commented on the previous Goodmail story but I'll say it again, it's all about control. Goodmail and Hotmail control who can and cannot get into your inbox. Not a good thing.
Using payment as a way to ensure messages get through is a viable solution. Most filtering techniques for spam have failed. For every new spam technique anti-spam software developers stop, several new techniques pop up. The financial incentives for spammers to continue doing what they are doing is very high. Thus, the arms race continues. You might have noticed, we're losing badly against spammers.
That said, the incentives for the Goodmail and Hotmail systems are all wrong. As mentioned above, the only people that will pay are big marketers. While this certainly cuts out true spammers (Viagra, Cialis, penny stocks, etc), it also cuts out you and me. The money collected ought to go to me, not my ISP. Worse, my ISP shouldn't control who can reach me and who can't.
To CmdrTaco's point, Boxbe has a very similar methodology for auto-whitelisting mailing list and recipients of mail that I send. We use an individualized code appended in the email sig file, thus ensuring that people that I email won't receive a challenge message. This solution works very well for me.
Randy[Disclosure: I work for Boxbe, a market based solution to spam]
Any market based system that puts the ISP in control has potential to leave its users high and dry. Can I trust my ISP to make decisions for me about who is a good sender and who is a bad one? I don't know. While I don't think ISPs are evil, I know they are desperate to curb spam.
Using payment as a way to ensure messages get through is a viable solution. Most filtering techniques for spam have failed. For every new spam technique anti-spam software developers stop, several new techniques pop up. The financial incentives for spammers to continue doing what they are doing is very high. Thus, the arms race continues. You might have noticed, we're losing badly against spammers.
That said, the incentives for the Goodmail system are all wrong. As mentioned above, the only people that will pay are big marketers. While this certainly cuts out true spammers (Viagra, Cialis, penny stocks, etc), it also cuts out you and me. The money collected ought to go to me, not my ISP.
The only way to get incentives aligned are to include the recipient in the payment plan. Let me set the price and get most of the money. Most ISPs would be happy to receive a cut of that as well as cut down on spam email. As Spy der Mann mentions above, the cost of protecting users against spam is very high.
Additionally, CmdrTaco raises an important issue about people who run mailing lists - would you pay $1000 to an ISP to continue running an email list? Or would you simply shut it down? Leaving the ISP in control of the white list potentially leaves a lot of people out in the cold.
If I control my white list, I wouldn't make CmdrTaco pay (unless he starts spamming me :-) ).
I want to control my white list. I want to control what comes into my inbox.
My time is valuable. If emailers waste my time, they should have to pay me, not my ISP.
Our solution currently works as a forwarding service and with Gmail. We'll be rolling out Yahoo! integration and domain level protection very soon.
Cheers,Randy Stewart
randy@boxbe.com
Wow, such heated debate. Not a lot that I can add to the conversation except that I'm running a blog about ditching cable for a combination of recording over the air television and using iTunes, called ditchingcable.com.
For me, while I'm recording OTA television, I do supplement the recordings with an occasional download and a subscription to the Daily Show.
A few things to consider
1. Do you watch reruns?
I don't. So, that really throws off the numbers. Networks and cable channels alike tend to run their repeats at the same time (summer time, holidays, etc). When I'm not paying for cable, I'm not paying for those times of year.
2. Do you watch sports?
I don't, but if you do, you're kind of screwed without cable television. Monday Night Football isn't even on broadcast television anymore. And good luck finding hockey or basketball at all.
For folks like me, who like television but can't be bothered with ads, reruns, sports, schedule conflicts, and appointment television, I can't imagine life before PVRs, but now, I'm really wondering why I paid those high cable bills for something that I used so little.
Cheers,
Randy Stewart
Ditching Cable