[Asrg] Email Postage (was Re: FeedBack loops)

[Hallam-Baker, Phillip]

Actually the underlying intellectual conceit of market fundamentalism is that the market is a perfectly tuned feedback loop.
 
The are a huge number of problems with that view. Not least the fact that like any other ideology, market fundamentalism is too simple to be a univeral solution to every problem and the fact that as with marxism and any other ideology that is tried in practice, the proponents are certain to carve out exceptions whenever the ideology does not meet their a-priori goals.
 
But on a strict level of control theory, the existence of a feedback loop does not imply effective control. There is the question of gain and the rather more subtle issue of timing. Poorly tuned control loops can make the problem worse.
 
 
In this case the value to me of sending this email to this list is rather less than the value a spammer would obtain through successful spamming. The value to me of sending this message is almost certainly negative: if I had to pay to send it I would almost certainly occupy my time more profitably doing something else. Ergo there is no price regime that has the desired outcome.
 
 
and then there is the fact that in the fifteen plus years I have been looking at micropayments, nobody has proposed a scheme that looks remotely viable to me as a solution in this instance.
 
We do not need to charge for inappropriate use of email, we only need to penalize inappropriate use.

________________________________

From: asrg-bounces at irtf.org on behalf of Steve Atkins
Sent: Thu 11/13/2008 2:48 PM
To: Anti-Spam Research Group - IRTF
Subject: [Asrg] Email Postage (was Re: FeedBack loops)



This is nothing to do with feedback loops.

On Nov 13, 2008, at 11:43 AM, Barry Shein wrote:

>
> How about: If it's commercial, and it hasn't been paid for by the
> sender (i.e., to the ISP who might pass that along as s/he sees fit),
> and the ISP declares that it should have been paid for, then it is
> spam?
>
> Period. The rest is implementation detail.
>
> I mean, how f****** crazy have we become?
>
> The only way to make a resource valuable is to make it scarce.
>
> We have done quite the opposite on the spam front so encouraged its
> proliferation.
>
>
> Q1. But what is commercial? And how high is the sky? And what's the
> meaning of summer?
>
> A1.1 It's commercial if the ISP says it is. Don't like the definition?
> POUND DIRT, find another provider, etc.
>
> Q2. But how are you going to make this policy airtight and perfectly
> impermeable because as WE ALL KNOW if just ONE message slips thru
> unbilled then WE MUST LET ALL MESSAGES THROUGH FOR FREE!
>
> A2.1 Is your whole family mentally ill, or is it just you?
>
> A2.2 Charging for something creates an economics around its
> control. So how well is the IETF paying y'all to participate in ASRG?
> Oh, right, yeah I know...phew (shakes head in disbelief.) See A2.1.
>
> Q3. But it's morally wrong to charge for commercial (i.e., any) email!
> Your customers are already paying for it! What about commercial email
> THEY WANT!
>
> A3.1 I assume this is the reason your postal service delivers all your
> (commercial) mail w/o charging postage? Ooops, waitaminit.
>
> A3.1 See A2.1.
>
> ---
>
> Put simply, anti-spam should be a process of creating a cost to
> sending commercial (and, by extension, any) email: to delineating and
> implementing policies, protocols, etc.
>
> Any other goal (sub-goals aside), like how are we going to keep this
> all you can eat party going and just discourage people who eat too
> much (why, some fill their pockets!!!) is nutso nutso nutso.
>
>
> -- 
>        -Barry Shein
>
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