Would you like to pay for the emails that you send?

[wrtpeeps]

AOL announced that it is going to allow companies the chance to pay AOL to have their emails bypass the AOL spam filter. Now although this filter does pretty much nothing anyway, this means that your spam companies will be able to pay AOL a small amount of cash, and their emails will be "certified by aol", thus bypassing the already pathetic spam filter.

AOL users, be prepared to received endless emails from egg.com and other credit card companies that would love nothing more than to bombard your inbox with rubbish. Now although the companies still have to adhere to spam laws etc, these laws do not stop them sending you mail constantly.

Oh, and before you all say AOL is rubbish, yahoo is doing it to!

Oh the joy...

[WildTangent]

It's hilarious, as this was meant to stop spam, with the rationale that only legitimate mass mailers like banks and such would pay. But the amount of money spammers get from advertisers far outweighs the cost per email most likely.

-Wild

[xequence]

Ive started getting alot of spam latly... Luckily gmail blocks all of it.

[fuscia]

post cancelled.

[Stormy Eyes]

Why be surprised? The telephone companies have been pulling this crap for years. They'll sell you Caller ID, call blocking, and unlisted phone numbers -- and then they'll turn around and give your "unlisted" number to telemarketers. Just remember, the best way to deal with spammers is Vlad Tepes' way: impale the bastards!

[dickohead]

It would be nice if they still allowed you to block everything... some people (most) are very anal about their SPAM and e-mail seperation. I have legitimate companies send me crud all the time, it's not technically SPAM, but it sure seems like it! Advertising Online all-together should be wiped out.. kidding, but your e-mail inbox should like a very well fortified letter box, where the sticker that states "no junk mail" is replaced with a star-wars style turret that blasts the crap out of anything defined as "junk" "spam" "advertising" or "people I don't like much".

[Stormy Eyes]

kidding, but your e-mail inbox should like a very well fortified letter box, where the sticker that states "no junk mail" is replaced with a star-wars style turret that blasts the crap out of anything defined as "junk" "spam" "advertising" or "people I don't like much".

I pray to Satan daily for the ability to bitch-slap spammers over standard TCP/IP.

[mstlyevil]

Snail mail makes most of it's money from junk mail so it probally holds true for junk E-Mail and the ISP's. It probally will not ever change so get good spam filtering software and have 2 seperate E-mail accounts. One for friends, relatives and bussiness contacts. The other one is the one you give out for online shopping, signing up for forums and other places that require an E-mail to use. My personal account never gets spam and my junk account is always filled with it. When I log on to my junk mail account I just skim the E-mails for the ones I want and then do a mass delete of the rest.

[wrtpeeps]

Snail mail makes most of it's money from junk mail so it probally holds true for junk E-Mail and the ISP's. It probally will not ever change so get good spam filtering software and have 2 seperate E-mail accounts. One for friends, relatives and bussiness contacts. The other one is the one you give out for online shopping, signing up for forums and other places that require an E-mail to use. My personal account never gets spam and my junk account is always filled with it. When I log on to my junk mail account I just skim the E-mails for the ones I want and then do a mass delete of the rest.

this is exactly what i do. My hotmail email gets infested with spam each day. I get all the stupid chain emails in there too. gmail is for goodies

[majikstreet]

What The ****!!

[wrtpeeps]

deleted.

[handy]

Bill Gates amongst others thinks that it is a good idea:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/05AOL.html?ei=5090&en=6efb03c8cbfac79e&ex=1296795600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1139232764-y5jAD4EZ9uZp9Yy3Um9KdA

If you don't pay, you won't be able to rely on your email arriving at its destination!

[bomanizer]

Evil.

If the problem is spam, then why not fight the root causes for spam? Those are of course:

a) spammers (duh)
b) botnets
c) compromised boxes sending spam
d) known spam servers

ps. old articles! don't know if this sceme is still relevant..

[Circus-Killer]

yeah, ones for 2004 and the other 2006.
dont know how relevant these articles are.
and even if this is possible, microsoft may like to believe they own the internet, but they dont.

anyways, the obvious answer is no. maybe it was a retorical question, which is still fun to answer just to cheese the asker off. :popcorn:

[Joeb454]

Bill Gates amongst others thinks that it is a good idea:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/05AOL.html?ei=5090&en=6efb03c8cbfac79e&ex=1296795600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1139232764-y5jAD4EZ9uZp9Yy3Um9KdA

If you don't pay, you won't be able to rely on your email arriving at its destination!

These links are from 2004 and 2006...

Is there really much point in discussing them, as clearly the stories haven't come true. The only time you would pay for email is if you wanted to have an ad free service.

[handy]

These links are from 2004 and 2006...

Is there really much point in discussing them, as clearly the stories haven't come true. The only time you would pay for email is if you wanted to have an ad free service.

I am quite surprised by how quickly people think these types of things happen.

It can take many years to put things in place nationally & internationally, just because something was mentioned a few years ago doesn't mean anything regarding the validity or likelihood of it materialising.

The general theme that I have been picking up from information I have been reading today, is that there are very powerful corporations at work that are trying to totally control & therefore change the the way the internet works.

If they get government approval, as has been happening in the U.S., then the telephone companies are gaining more ownership of the internet, instead of just having carrier status as before. This is a very poor move by that government. My countries government is being manipulated also, & we could be in very serious internet freedom trouble within the next 2 or 3 years.

There is a very strong multi-pronged attack on the internet freedoms that we know & love happening right now.

[eragon100]

Barack Obama is a big supporter of Net Neutrality.

But I don't think this will happen anyway.

[chucky chuckaluck]

It can take many years to put things in place nationally & internationally, just because something was mentioned a few years ago doesn't mean anything regarding the validity or likelihood of it materialising.


why not take the wind out of the sails of those who would discredit dated material by providing current articles or updates, as well?

[klange]

Regardless of the date, the topic intrigues me.

How would they actually be able to charge people for mail service? I run my own mail server out of my basement, and while I recent started using my ISP's relay for my outgoing mail, I could easily send to a number of different places straight out of my box.

e: It would appear someone did a merge...

[sydbat]

Look at Hotmail/MSN/Windows Live/whateverthehelltheycallitnow.

With Yahoo or Gmail, for example, you can check "other" emails (like Yahoo from Gmail and vice versa), but you cannot check your Windows mail from Yahoo or Gmail. This is locking you into their services.

Also, you need IE to access the content on Windows Live. Sure you can use a plug-in on FF to do it, but they are moving toward total proprietary access control for a crappy email service.

Finally, Yahoo (in the US) started charging for access to their servers years ago...not sure if they still do...but you had/have to pay to use Thunderbird/Outlook to download your email...online access is still free.

And Joeb454 mentioned paying to remove ads...there is one way of getting your money...perhaps the first of many.

[handy]

why not take the wind out of the sails of those who would discredit dated material by providing current articles or updates, as well?

Thanks for your offer of help chucky. :-)

[zmjjmz]

I'm so happy that even if Google decides to do this, it won't get past Thunderbird's filter.

[Trail]

That's pretty lame... I'm just, I don't know, dissapointed. Pff.

[uberdonkey5]

Ive started getting alot of spam latly... Luckily gmail blocks all of it.

yay for gmail. Same here. I get about 200 spams a week in my spam box (that with gmail you can just wipe at the press of a button, with no waste of your own computer resources). I have never received spam in my normal mail, nor normal mail in my spam, in about 5 years with the same email address. I don't know how they do it so well.

If you even have to think about spam, use gmail. (and hopefully they will not allow people to pay to get past spam filters, otherwise I will change!)

As far as paying for emails goes? It could reduce the amount of spam, but not sure whether the figures would balance up. For example, we all get advertising rubbish shoved through our letter boxes (that costs money to deliver), yet most of us don't have the time, money or desire to send lots of postal letters to people.

I think advertising (in general) should be MUCH more tightly regulated. The internet is saturated with adverts, and really, who reads them now. I actually have a personal ANTI-marketing campaign whereby I avoid companies who I see advertising in excessively prolific or irritating ways.

ud5

[uberdonkey5]

I am quite surprised by how quickly people think these types of things happen.

It can take many years to put things in place nationally & internationally, just because something was mentioned a few years ago doesn't mean anything regarding the validity or likelihood of it materialising.

The general theme that I have been picking up from information I have been reading today, is that there are very powerful corporations at work that are trying to totally control & therefore change the the way the internet works.

If they get government approval, as has been happening in the U.S., then the telephone companies are gaining more ownership of the internet, instead of just having carrier status as before. This is a very poor move by that government. My countries government is being manipulated also, & we could be in very serious internet freedom trouble within the next 2 or 3 years.

There is a very strong multi-pronged attack on the internet freedoms that we know & love happening right now.

PS. yes, this is worrying, and I can see why governments and private bodies would want more control over the internet. Not just because of security and for the prevention of organised terrorism, but also for controlling freedom to information. The 2nd Gulf War was an excellent example of how the internet has changed politics and was a potential threat to government control... people organised protests be internet, people could get direct information from iraq and other countries around the world and people discussed the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (apart from the anthrax that the US had provided Iraq). It is more difficult now for a government to provide a paletable and simplistic reason to go to war, or to take any political action, without people questioning this, and backing up this questioning with facts.

I fully believe we are at the start of a communication revolution which is of major importance in human history, and it hasn't fully developed or evolved yet.