Subject: [Asrg] ISP charges for receiving email?

From: "Damien Morton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 02:23:42 -0500

Some people were discussing the 10%, 50% and 90% implementation stages,
and the motivation to convert over to any new system.

Id like to propose that any system that requires changes at the client
end will be much harder to push through than a system that requires
changes at the server end. Changing 100K servers is easier and cheaper
than changing 100M clients.

If ISPs charged each other for receiving email, then net producers of
email (and spammers) would end up paying where they pay nothing now. If
a user at an ISP produced a disproportionate amount of email, the ISP
would have an interest in pushing the cost onto the user, just as users
of excessive bandwidth tend to be charged for it by ISPs.

At the 10% stage, a charging system could act as a filter in which
unpaid emails would be flagged as possible spam. Alternatively, mail
from non-paying sources could be delivered at a lower priority and/or
put through rigorous spam screening with a high false-positive rate.
Paid email always get through.

As you moved towards the 90% stage, you could begin to reject unpaid
email at the server level.

At the mail server level, the only thing that is required is some
mechanism by which ISPs can decide - do I have a relationship with the
sending/relaying server such that I can charge for each email I receive.
I imagine that a number of clearinghouses could be set up to facilitate
such transactions.

Im sure this idea has been propsed before, but it seems to me to be the
only effective way to ensure that spam is not sent, as opposed to
filtered out at some point after it has been sent.

There are a number of issues with this system, such as how to handle
mailing lists. I imagine that some mechanism by which users could inform
their servers of exemptions or rebates would come into play.

I like to compare this system with the telephone system. Imagine if
telemarketing calls became so endemic that people stopped using the
phone system. One way to prevent that would be to switch over to having
personal 1-900 numbers.

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From: Kee Hinckley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:41:04 -0500

>email (and spammers) would end up paying where they pay nothing now. If

Senders pay part of the cost now--it's hidden in their bandwidth 
costs.  Spammers in general don't pay because they are stealing 
bandwidth.

>of excessive bandwidth tend to be charged for it by ISPs.

If ISPs felt that it was profitable to charge for outgoing email 
bandwidth they could do it now.  Many already block port 25 
outbound--so they can easily track outbound email use.  They don't 
charge for this because there is a perception that users wouldn't 
stand for paying extra for it.  And also because the cost of sending 
email is very low--in the noise compared to most network use.  The 
cost is on the receiving side, where they have no control.

So I'd argue that an ISP is not going to charge users for sending 
email unless someone is charging *them* for sending email.

>Paid email always get through.

When important email does not make it through there are two 
pressures.  One is to on the sender, who wanted the message to get 
through.  The other is on the recipient, who wanted to receive the 
message.

I think it's fair to argue that the importance of getting a message 
through to any one person decreases with the number of people you are 
sending to.  So if I'm sending to twenty people, the fact that one 
fails is less important than if I'm sending to one.  On the other 
hand, the importance of *receiving* a message is based more on the 
content than the number of other people who received the message.

To give a concrete example.  It's very important to me to get my 
order confirmation from Amazon.  Amazon, on the other hand, is not 
going to be terribly upset if one person in a thousand doesn't get 
their order confirmation.

In talking to customers, it's clear to me that most people care *far* 
more about false positives (missed email) than false negatives 
(received spam).  There are exceptions--but that view seems to be far 
more prevalent.

Most messages are delivered to more than one person.

This should lead to a simple formulae for the which way the 
incentives go when someone adopts a new solution.  Unfortunately I've 
been up all night and formulae's, simple or otherwise, escape me. 
Anyone care to try?

But the point I'm trying to make so awkwardly is that your 10% 
solution is does not create an incentive for people to start paying 
postage.  It creates a very strong incentive for the recipient to 
stop charging.  That's because the cost of a lost message is far 
higher to the recipient than to the average sender.

We've had several people now propose that unpaid/unverified email be 
slowed down or filed elsewhere or otherwise demoted in order to 
increase the incentive on the sender to follow the rules.  I think 
those suggestions are actually counter productive.  I'd be more 
willing, as a recipient, to charge senders postage if I did *nothing* 
to the people who didn't pay.  But of course if I do that, the 
senders will be even less likely to adopt the system.

Fundamentally the tragedy of the commons is not just creating spam, 
it's also preventing a solution--because even the non-spammers are 
primarily motivated by self-interest.
-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.puremessaging.com/        Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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