Getting Real About Anti-Spam

It seems like everyone has a silver-bullet solution to stop junk email. Most of them seem to fail in a common way.

One of my favorites is the notion of charging for email. The idea is that everyone charges some small amount of money to have an email sent to them. A friend is unlikely to balk about it costing $0.01 to send an email to you.

A spammer however can't make any money doing this. The current cost of sending spam messages is probably closer to $.00001 each.

Here's the catch. At some point someone has to get their feet wet and start trying to charge senders. Who wants to go first?

I promise you, as soon as you start bouncing messages to unapproved senders with, "please click here to enter your electronic postage code" - your spam will go away. It's a 100% effective way to stop unwanted emails. You'll also never hear back on that resume you sent out. Strangely enough that cute person who met at the bar never bothered to get back to you either.

The same issue applies if it's implemented by ISPs. If you found out your ISP was charging your friends to send you email, how long would it take for you to find another provider? Email is a critical resource people have come to depend on. Implementing large-scale radical spam solutions is like trying to change the oil in your car while driving. It unfortunately won't work.

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