http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-999561.html Want to stop spammers? Charge 'em By Declan McCullagh May 5, 2003, 4:00 AM PT WASHINGTON--I spent last week at the Federal Trade Commission's three-day spam summit where hundreds of people, fed up with the skyrocketing amount of unsolicited bulk e-mail, gathered to figure out how to stop it. The suggestions were predictable: As they have each year since 1997, with nothing to show for it so far, members of Congress vowed to enact a law restricting spam. People selling spam blockers touted their products, and so-called e-mail marketers complained that their bulk messages were being unfairly tossed in the trash. Poor things. On Friday morning, though, FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle said something that made a lot of sense. "I don't care if it's commercial, religious or entertainment (spam). It's all pollution," he said. That's exactly right, and it's how we need to start thinking about spam. Spam is not primarily a technological or legal problem: It's an economic one. From an economic perspective, spam is just another form of pollution, an activity that imposes costs on people without their permission. Like all polluters, spammers impose these costs because of the benefits to them--in this case, the profits they make from sales, however few. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed May 07 2003 - 10:00:47 PDT