[Gllug] Paying to send email..

[David Damerell]

On Monday, 6 Feb 2006, Martyn Drake wrote:
>Is anybody else concerned about this as I am,

I hope not, because it would be a complete overreaction.

["this", for the benefit of those who don't want to chase links, is
the old "pay a cent to send email" proposal, with the idea that AOL
and Yahoo will not do spam filtering on email from organisations that
pay for it.]

>and that I don't think  
>it's going to make any difference to the overall level of crap that  
>goes through (other than to perhaps make AOL and Yahoo even more money)?
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4684942.stm

I hope it will make them *less* money once it is realised that what
they are doing is letting people sign up to spam their users. This
particular implementation of this scheme is aimed, fairly clearly, at
spammers who want to cast a thin cloak of respectability over
themselves; they'll call it "legitimate email marketing" and they
won't be pimping anything actively illegal. Not the first time we've
seen this one, either.

Who would be most likely to want their messages not sent through spam
filters? People who aren't sending spam have a small worry about false
positives. People who _are_ sending spam have a large worry about
non-false positives. Who can most afford to pay to send email? People
who expect to make money off the email.

It won't have any effect on regular mail to AOL and Yahoo users, which
will remain incredibly flaky and unreliable - no change there.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Olethros, February - a weekend.
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