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postage fees on email

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe...=1012571727088

US internet service providers are coming round to the idea that they may have to start levying "postage" fees on those who send out huge amounts of commercial e-mail, because anti-spam filters have failed to keep down the growth of junk e-mail.


The idea of fee-based e-mail is controversial among internet libertarians and groups such as the Direct Marketing Association, the politically powerful lobbying group that comprises 4,700 companies, many of which use e-mail to advertise to customers.

But advocates of a fee-based system for bulk e-mail believe it would help distinguish between legitimate e-mail from respectable corporations and offensive spam from shady operators who presumably could not afford to send tens of millions of messages a day.

Proponents of e-mail payment systems argue that corporations that have adopted online marketing are concerned that up to 20 per cent of their e-mails are not getting past spam filters.

Another concern is that rapid growth in legitimate bulk e-mail could further stress network capacity and place huge financial burdens on ISPs and corporations that carry and receive the messages.

These groups have already been forced to hire technicians, deploy filters and bolster network capacity to cope with the flood of spam.

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the real hard core spamers operating from floating servers in S.E. asia will not be affected by this at all.

here's the key element in this whole thing:

"Proponents of e-mail payment systems argue that corporations that have adopted online marketing are concerned that up to 20 per cent of their e-mails are not getting past spam filters."

so with legislation like this spammers who pay-up must be allowed freedom from commercial spam filtering and this will be protected by law. well that’s what i see anyway

Yahoo is thinking about charging bulk emailers 1 cent a letter...bet that’s going to keep spam out of yahoo mailboxs.

this would open up whole new vistas to commercial albeit legitimate bulk emailers

and they call this fighting spam!

write your reps in government and tell them what you think of the Direct Marketing Association. these guys are a powerful lobbying group but they don’t elect anyone. if the politicians don’t get re-elected all the perks stop. either that or you can like it when it comes to pass

kill it before it grows

Interesting Tedob1,

Sort of like "tax the innocent, because the guilty are beyond our reach"

Still, it might get some fat a$$ed sysadmins fix their open relays?

Thinking very rapidly of an alternative........................how about licencing bulk comercial e-mailers.............nominal amount to cover the administration................revoke their licence if it is abused so they pay the charge?

That would punish the open relays and leave the legit people more or less alone?

I am not good at thinking quickly, so I don't know what to do about mass mailing worms and viruses that got into the mail server :( ................I have software that protects desktop machines but not the server..............I need to think about that some more.

Good heads up!

Cheers

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US internet service providers are coming round to the idea that they may have to start levying "postage" fees on those who send out huge amounts of commercial e-mail, because anti-spam filters have failed to keep down the growth of junk e-mail.

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That is one of the most retarded things I've ever heard. The problem is open relays... not only that... but viruses that are installing open relays... the user doensn't even know there is anything wrong with their PCs... they don't see anything strange happening, or their computer isn't crashing. They just think that their internet is slow because of all the damn kids on p2p networks like the media or ISP told them.

I agree with you Nihil.

My company is looking at starting to bulk email out clients. We have had so much trouble with our ISP (outsourced) because of the mass amounts of email we sent on our trial send. We have 10's of thousands of clients who have all signed (literally checked the box it doesn't default) up to receive emails from us. But it is very difficult to get pass our ISP.

We looked at outsourcing our email system. However in doing this they will charge us 2cent per email and 1cent if the email get kicked. So, we are not going with this option.

Nihil you said it when you said -

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"tax the innocent, because the guilty are beyond our reach"

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Is there a way we can fight this or offer different options?

Good article Tedob1.


Adiz

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Is there a way we can fight this or offer different options?

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Can't beat em, might as well join them?

Start writing your own viruses with open relays... :D j/k of course.

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Is there a way we can fight this or offer different options?

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i know this might be tough doing from a van down by the river but when you get to your work place call fax and email (not bulk) your representatives. encourage your friends and asscociates to do the same.

its not legislation yet so if the politicians here enough people are against it, when they are approached by the lobbiests they'll say "hey, sorry bro!"

as far as companys trying to cut their over head...not by making my like more miserable you don't! its the cost of doing biz on the net. if you cant cut it get the hell off.

adiz what exactly upsets your isp. do you send it out as one looonngg string of email slowing the whole network down? we're on a T with UUnet. we get and receive maybe 10k messages a day. i mean thats why we have a T. maybe if you slowed down the speed of sending and split it up over a few days it wouldnt be to bad. you say it is not unsolisited bulk commercial email so its not spam. if you have multiple locations you could split it up amoung them. i mean you have a right to send requested info. as long as recepiants can easily get off the list and your not buying mailing lists of people that supposedly 'agreed', whats the problem?

if you are sending tens of thousands of messages ever day then you ARE a spammer and should pay dearly.