Have a look at the business of Vanquish.com. I think they do most of what you are asking. I agree that too much effort has been placed on trying to find a technology solution to spam and not enough emphasis on finding a market solution.

Just plain charging email per piece would deter a lot of spam. For the spammer the cost is the same to send one or one million.

Kind of kills the beauty of email to charge for it.

Adding internet postage is not a good idea. Challenge sender machine to solve a complex problem to return key for gateway to allow mail through.

That slows spam and drives up cost of necessary equipment for spammers.

I don't want to pay for sending emails!

A better, current and workable system to stop spam is to install a "Bayesian filter" in your email. See here for more details :-)

I think this is a great idea if the charge is limited to bulk emails. Should be combined with the ability to say what spam you would positively welcome (there must be folk out there who positively WANT their penis enlarged!). I could handle a lot of spam if I was paid when I received it. The Vanquish product mentioned here looks good, but I think the idea of charging a small fee for all bulk mail is a good one, and if the Vanquish product were adapted to give this as an option then it would sell like hot cakes.

I support the idea of charging a fee for bulk e-mail. Companies have to pay a price for advertising and marketing their products.

Otherwise they will not bother to target at particular groups of people that might be interested in their products at the costs of the receivers.

Yes, I think I should be able to charge a bulk sender for my time (or not). This decision should be my call. Would anyone not want this ability? I just downloaded that Vanquish product. It does just that. Good call "WhyNot", a very simple solution to what everyone else thinks is a complex problem.

P.S. Not that I'm offended, but gee-wiz, I don't even own a penis?

I installed Vanquish after reading Ian & Barry's book (pg 125-126), and seeing Barry mention it in this thread. It's been 2 months now and in a word, I feel LIBERATED!!

This is an awesome service. I wondered how any filter could determine the content and purpose of every incomingmessage? Of course, they cannot. They block an unacceptable number ofimportant messages. Even if filters could perfectly discern between breastcancer and "get bigger breasts", or between a mortgage scam andyour own banking business, the whole concept is flawed, because oneman's spam is another man's steak.

For the same reason, a "good citizen" endorsement on email is meaningless. Theorganization may not reflect your own beliefs; the member may be in violationof the organization guidelines; of more likely - a spammer has no compunctionsabout claiming to be endorsed by the organization.

The authors of this product recognize that unsolicited contact is sometimesnecessary and even commercial contact is not a sin. The real problem is thedeluge of email that is irrelevent, offensive, or otherwise off target. Thesender had no valid reason to include you on his list, but the low cost allowedhim to blitz millions of recipients without any respect for their personalinterests and demographics. And so the programmers at Vanquish resort to theone filter that really makes sense... The pocketbook of the sender! Vanquishrequires that an unrecognized sender be willing to risk a few cents for pushinghis message through to your mailbox, or alternatively to solve a challenge foreach protected address. The solution is haltingly simple. Economics arereversed, the recipient is empowered, email remains free (to SENDERS -but notto SPAMMERS); and the medium becomes viable once again.

I've used Vanquish with accounts at Earthlink andComcast (cable). I laugh at legislative efforts to hunt down fake Nigerian dictators. This service performs flawlessly. Spam has finally met its match. This is a category killer.

Only a rare few can actually survive on tiny e-payments (like the apple music store). There are more creative ways to transfer funds, but I don't think anyone would be prepared for a tech solution to spam for a payment scheme for all emails.

"What else can I say other than , yessssss it works !!! and works very well. It is great to see all the spam , blocked by Vanquish , a very intelligent and effective tool against spam-mail. Not only because your mailbox may ""breathe"" again but because new spam cannot beat the Vanquish barrier.

I also wanted you to know how pleased I am with your customer service ... I almost feel I want to have a question or problem . Answers are very quickly , and very informative - And, if this were not enough, they contact you "after" to be sure everything is ok........how often do you get this treatment???

Thank you Vanquish for the consideration you have for your customers."

Laurent

I like the idea, with a few modificatins.

1) I'd like my ISP to implement it:

2) I'd prefer a MicroPayment system say one cent that would be charge for any mail that I did not "WhiteList" or approve, and any mail to closed/nonexistant mail boxes. The key on this is it would provide support for the ISP for the service and the "Spammer" would not know if there was an Invalid address or just a "I don't want to get spam" user at the other end.

Of course I WANT TO BE IN CHARGE of whether this is done and for who.

We could than have our ISP's augment the No Cost Senders list, with BlockLists, Filters, Open Port lists... That way a spammer would be charged for massive sending where as a normal user might be charged a little bit if their recipiant did not "WhiteList" them.

Since I'm MAC and Vanquish is PC only, I've been relying on my ISP's spamware which holds all questionable mail for me to review (with notification to senders to request to be added to my address book).It's quite simple for me, very effective, hasn't cost me anything and -I need not write programs or filters/rules. While it does not punish spammers with postage costs, I don't care about revenge since my Emailbox is spam free.

Good idea but can be improved. Micropayments are not widely accepted/trusted by innocent individuals. I need to receive email from a variety of new people and companies; such as the return emails you get when you get an account; prospective members of my club; and loose associates. White lists are too time consuming, as are microparments. If this is to combat spam effectively it needs universal acceptance.