User: Prof. Van Alstyne

Here's our 2 cents worth:

On: Selling Your Attention to Spammers

1) Seen it before? -- yep, sure have. We do not claim to have invented it. Instead, we provide the first economic analysis for how this affects value, and connect it to a key idea: The Coase Theorem, which is a way to deal with negative side-effects like pollution. We compare this proposal to idealized versions of filters and taxes to show relative advantages and disadvantages.

2) Requires spammer cooperation? -- nope. No realistic solution will do this. Instead, it's a modified form of challenge response in which spammers simply cannot reach you unless they commit something of value.

3) Honeypots? -- definitely yes! This puts the burden on marketers to clean up their lists, which cuts the flow of wasteful traffic; which is the point, right?

4) Beat a perfect filter? -- yeah sure?!? Actually, yes, this really is possible, but not always true. It can happen for two reasons. (1) Imagine that you got paid for mail you didn't want. Wouldn't you be better off? (2) Also, filters take a static view, but try considering a dynamic alternative. What if you could increase the volume of good mail you wanted, but curtail the mail you didn't want? Wouldn't you be better off?

For anyone who's interested, the academic (read equation laden) article is available here, and comments are welcome: http://www.paritive.com/bej/spam-bej.pdf

Cheers,

Prof. Van Alstyne