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profitable spam deterrent

 Your email is like a 900 number, it costs a nickel to send you an email
  (+1)
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I'm not sure how exactly to implement it but it sure would cut down on the spam, and it if didn't you wouldn't care because you would be making money from it. I would not have a problem with paying a nickel to my mom and friends every time I sent them an email. Would you?
—davidcreede, Jul 22 2003

Slashdot discussion http://slashdot.org...tml?tid=126&tid=111
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

[link]






       Whenever you receive an email you get a popup and can choose to either 1. refund the nickel or 2. keep the nickel. So when it's from people you know you just refund their nickel. If it's spam, you are a nickel closer to getting some brand new ketchup marbles.
—DeathNinja, Jul 22 2003
   

       Good idea, although I see potential for abuse by virus writers by making the victims' computers continually send emails to them - turning DDOS attacks into a nice little earner, if you will.   

       [fogfreak] In the 'bakery, you're obliged to do so. We take our spelling and grammar very seriously around here. Some would say, "Too seriously," but they are soon crushed beneath the jackboot of our collective pedantry.   

       For example:
sp: "I'm"; "I"; "sent"; "Would"
—friendlyfire, Jul 22 2003
   

       This has been proposed many times, as it does directly address a root cause of the spam problem: the fact that email is "free". Among those who have proposed it is US Senator Mark Dayton from Minnesota. See link for a discussion on Slashdot from a few months ago.
—krelnik, Jul 22 2003
   

       I was for charging for email, but I decided against it. Spammer's existence is to con people into buying their services. I thought what would happen if it was profitable to receive email. Spammers will begin to spam message boards. They will try to provoke someone into writing them email. A spammer might write, "Adolf Hitler is my hero", I am sure that a lot of people would like to write an angry response to the spammer's statement. A spammer could also try to pretend to be someone famous or ask a question. Anything that will trigger a response will be used.   

       My conclusion is that this proposal will destroy message boards.
—Regulus, Oct 06 2003
   
      
[annotate]
   


 

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