Could taxes on unsolicited e-mail put an end to the SPAM problem?

[Shrek]

I've thought of this before and thought it would be a great idea! These taxes would not extend to personal e-mail or commercial e-mail subscriptions, but only to unsolicited SPAM e-mail.

I mean think about it, if taxes were put on unsolicited e-mail then it would be very expensive for companies to send millions and millions of bulk e-mail messages at a time, and should greatly decrease the amount of junk mail that circulates on the Internet. This would not only decrease the number of junk mail headaches, but would also help free up resources on the millions of e-mail servers out there, so that companies can spend less money on mail servers and help speed up the transmission of e-mail!

Question is though is how can unsolicited e-mail be distinguished from non-unsolicited e-mail in order to properly tax the right messages?

I'm thinking about sending this to my congressman. What do you think? ;)

[losfp]

Actually your biggest problem would be figuring out where to send the bill.

the "responsible" spam is easy to handle. they don't arrive as often, and the companies are willing to take your address off their lists.

What about the 99% of spam that's virtually untracable?

[Shrek]

Originally posted by losfp
Actually your biggest problem would be figuring out where to send the bill.


To my representative of course. :)


the "responsible" spam is easy to handle. they don't arrive as often, and the companies are willing to take your address off their lists.


Eh, hem! That's called targeted e-mail and you only get it if you sign up for it. It is NOT spam!


What about the 99% of spam that's virtually untracable?

Innovation will find its way. :)

[Durandal7]

Originally posted by Shrek

Eh, hem! That's called targeted e-mail and you only get it if you sign up for it. It is NOT spam!

I think he was referring to spam from a respectable company that wishes to advertise while staying legal (i.e. removing you from the list on request).

[Nipsy]

Additionally, this opens doors to other forms of taxation on the web, which none of us want.

Also, jurisdictionally, it becomes very difficult to track which state or country is soliciting which, and I doubt that these are companies or individuals likely to accurately report to their respctive taxation boards.

[Shrek]

Ok, on the issue of identifying junk e-mail I've thought of an innovative idea. How about making it where the addressees themselves decide what is junk and what is not? Make it like the Junk Mail feature in Jaguar; the system would be good at identifying junk mail on its own, but addressees can let the post office (which regulates unsolicited e-mail) know what they think is junk and what they think is not junk. Then if the addressees get any such mail in the future that they don't want, then that mail would be taxed (note that this would not work for "targeted" e-mail).

This kind of innovation would work out great because there are some people that like to receive certain kinds of junk mail. If the post office just goes out and blocks all junk e-mail, then some people could really get pissed off! :mad:

A similiar system could be used to stop junk postal mail as well. Imagine all the trash we WON'T be throwing away; helps clean up the environment. ;)

[Nipsy]

I have always thought that the best solution to this is for smtp/relay servers not to process mail which doesn't originate from a valid address.

Sure, this won't stop marketing spam from legit businesses, but it will prevent you children from reading about Lydia's Luscious Glory Hole.