B
Baphomet
Guest
N.Y. Times
February 2, 2004
By SAUL HANSELL
Should people have to buy electronic stamps to send e-mail?
Some Internet experts have long suggested that the rising
tide of junk e-mail, or spam, would turn into a trickle if
senders had to pay even as little as a penny for each
message they sent. Such an amount might be minor for
legitimate commerce and communications, but it could
destroy businesses that send a million offers in hopes that
10 people will respond. The idea has been dismissed both as
impractical and against the free spirit of the Internet.
Now, though, the idea of e-mail postage is getting a second
look from the owners of the two largest e-mail systems in
the world, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Ten days ago, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that spam would
not be a problem in two years, in part because of systems
that would require people to pay money to send e-mail.
Yahoo, meanwhile, is quietly evaluating an e-mail postage
plan being developed by Goodmail, a Silicon Valley start-up
company.
"The fundamental problem with spam is there is not enough
friction in sending e-mail," said Brad Garlinghouse,
Yahoo's manager for communications products.
The company is intrigued by the idea of postage, Mr.
Garlinghouse said, because it would force mailers to send
only those offers a significant number of people might
accept. "All of a sudden, spammers can't behave without
regard for the Internet providers' or end users' interests,
" he said.
Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft have made any commitment to
charging postage, in part because the idea still faces
substantial opposition among Internet users.
"Damn if I will pay postage for my nice list," said David
Farber, a computer scientist at the University of
Pennsylvania, who runs a mailing list on technology and
policy with 30,000 recipients. He said electronic postage
systems are likely to be too complex and would charge
noncommercial users who should be able to send e-mail free.
"I suspect the cost of postage will start out small and it
will rapidly escalate," he added.
In the meantime, the big Internet providers, including
Microsoft and Yahoo, in recent weeks have renewed talks
that stalled last year about creating technological
standards to help identify the senders of legitimate
e-mail. That way, spammers would either have to identify
themselves or risk that users would discard all anonymous
mail.
But for the big Internet access providers, or I.S.P.'s, the
prospect of e-mail postage creating a new revenue stream
that could help offset the cost of their e-mail systems is
undeniably attractive.
"Sending large volumes of e-mail involve costs that are
paid for by the I.S.P.'s and eventually by consumers," said
Linda Beck, executive vice president for operations at
EarthLink. "Should there be some sort of financial
responsibility borne by the originators of these large
volume programs? I think there should." E-mail between
private individuals, she added, ought to remain free.
Differentiating among classes of e-mail is one of the
substantial technical difficulties that e-mail postage
proposals face. In wrestling with this matter, academic
researchers have proposed complex stamp systems in which
each e-mail recipient sets the price for a message to enter
his or her in-box. Mr. Gates talked at Davos about a system
that would allow users to waive charges for friends and
relatives.
Goodmail, founded by Daniel T. Dreymann, an Israeli
entrepreneur, is developing a system that it hopes will be
easier to adopt. It proposes that only high-volume mailers
pay postage at first, at a rate of a penny a message, with
the money going to the e-mail recipient's Internet access
provider. (The company suggests, but does not require, that
the Internet providers share the payments with their users,
either through rebates or by lowering monthly fees.)
The Goodmail system is designed to work even if not all
senders and not all Internet providers participate. A mass
e-mailer would sign up with Goodmail, buying a block of
stamps - actually an encrypted code number - that it would
insert in the header of each e-mail message. If the
Internet provider of the recipient participates in the
system, it decrypts the stamp and submits it to Goodmail.
Only then is the sender's account charged a penny and the
receiving I.S.P. paid the penny, minus a service fee by
Goodmail for acting as a clearinghouse.
Senders do not pay for stamps that are not used, but they
do pay whether an e-mail recipient reads the message or
not.
Under this plan, Internet providers would still accept
incoming e-mail without stamps. But that mail would be
subject to the same sort of spam filters in use now, which
can at times divert legitimate mail. The Internet providers
would deliver all stamped mail without any filter. Goodmail
does not require that stamped mail be requested by the
recipient, the so-called opt-in requirement of most other
anti-spam systems.
"The very notion that I have to get permission to send you
a marketing message doesn't make sense and is not good
public policy," said Richard Gingras, Goodmail's chief
executive. Even so, he said that Goodmail would require
mailers to verify their identities and to take people off
their mailing lists if such a request was made.
This kind of approach would require major policy changes by
Internet providers, which all ban unsolicited e-mail even
if they have little ability to block it.
In fact, some experts worry that big spammers will indeed
pay the postage. Charles Stiles, manager of the postmaster
department at America Online, said he was concerned that
such a system might restrict the wrong mail, adding, "It is
the spammers who are the ones with the big pockets."
AOL is taking a different approach and is testing a system
under development by the Internet Research Task Force. The
system, called the Sender Permitted From, or S.P.F.,
creates a way for the owner of an Internet domain, like
aol.com, to specify which computers are authorized to send
e-mail with aol.com return addresses. That allows a
recipient's e-mail system to determine whether a message
being represented as coming from someone at aol.com really
is from that address. Most spam being sent now uses forged
return addresses.
Microsoft has been floating a similar proposal, labeled
"caller ID," that could be expanded in the future to
accommodate more sophisticated anti-spam approaches
including Internet postage systems. Discussions are under
way among the backers of S.P.F., Microsoft and others
involved in e-mail to reach a compromise sender
notification system.
All these proposals can run into problems because there are
legitimate cases when mail sent by one domain claims to be
from another. For example, online greeting-card services
will send messages with the return address of the person
sending the card, even though the message does not go
through the sender's e-mail account.
People taking part in the discussion say that companies
like greeting-card services may need to change their e-mail
software to comply with the new standards.
"Every proposed scheme will break parts of the way e-mail
works today," said Hans Peter Brondmo, a senior vice
president of Digital Impact who has represented big
e-mailers in the spam technology negotiations. The
challenge, he said, is to find a system that will require
as little retrofitting as possible to e-mail systems.
February 2, 2004
By SAUL HANSELL
Should people have to buy electronic stamps to send e-mail?
Some Internet experts have long suggested that the rising
tide of junk e-mail, or spam, would turn into a trickle if
senders had to pay even as little as a penny for each
message they sent. Such an amount might be minor for
legitimate commerce and communications, but it could
destroy businesses that send a million offers in hopes that
10 people will respond. The idea has been dismissed both as
impractical and against the free spirit of the Internet.
Now, though, the idea of e-mail postage is getting a second
look from the owners of the two largest e-mail systems in
the world, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Ten days ago, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that spam would
not be a problem in two years, in part because of systems
that would require people to pay money to send e-mail.
Yahoo, meanwhile, is quietly evaluating an e-mail postage
plan being developed by Goodmail, a Silicon Valley start-up
company.
"The fundamental problem with spam is there is not enough
friction in sending e-mail," said Brad Garlinghouse,
Yahoo's manager for communications products.
The company is intrigued by the idea of postage, Mr.
Garlinghouse said, because it would force mailers to send
only those offers a significant number of people might
accept. "All of a sudden, spammers can't behave without
regard for the Internet providers' or end users' interests,
" he said.
Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft have made any commitment to
charging postage, in part because the idea still faces
substantial opposition among Internet users.
"Damn if I will pay postage for my nice list," said David
Farber, a computer scientist at the University of
Pennsylvania, who runs a mailing list on technology and
policy with 30,000 recipients. He said electronic postage
systems are likely to be too complex and would charge
noncommercial users who should be able to send e-mail free.
"I suspect the cost of postage will start out small and it
will rapidly escalate," he added.
In the meantime, the big Internet providers, including
Microsoft and Yahoo, in recent weeks have renewed talks
that stalled last year about creating technological
standards to help identify the senders of legitimate
e-mail. That way, spammers would either have to identify
themselves or risk that users would discard all anonymous
mail.
But for the big Internet access providers, or I.S.P.'s, the
prospect of e-mail postage creating a new revenue stream
that could help offset the cost of their e-mail systems is
undeniably attractive.
"Sending large volumes of e-mail involve costs that are
paid for by the I.S.P.'s and eventually by consumers," said
Linda Beck, executive vice president for operations at
EarthLink. "Should there be some sort of financial
responsibility borne by the originators of these large
volume programs? I think there should." E-mail between
private individuals, she added, ought to remain free.
Differentiating among classes of e-mail is one of the
substantial technical difficulties that e-mail postage
proposals face. In wrestling with this matter, academic
researchers have proposed complex stamp systems in which
each e-mail recipient sets the price for a message to enter
his or her in-box. Mr. Gates talked at Davos about a system
that would allow users to waive charges for friends and
relatives.
Goodmail, founded by Daniel T. Dreymann, an Israeli
entrepreneur, is developing a system that it hopes will be
easier to adopt. It proposes that only high-volume mailers
pay postage at first, at a rate of a penny a message, with
the money going to the e-mail recipient's Internet access
provider. (The company suggests, but does not require, that
the Internet providers share the payments with their users,
either through rebates or by lowering monthly fees.)
The Goodmail system is designed to work even if not all
senders and not all Internet providers participate. A mass
e-mailer would sign up with Goodmail, buying a block of
stamps - actually an encrypted code number - that it would
insert in the header of each e-mail message. If the
Internet provider of the recipient participates in the
system, it decrypts the stamp and submits it to Goodmail.
Only then is the sender's account charged a penny and the
receiving I.S.P. paid the penny, minus a service fee by
Goodmail for acting as a clearinghouse.
Senders do not pay for stamps that are not used, but they
do pay whether an e-mail recipient reads the message or
not.
Under this plan, Internet providers would still accept
incoming e-mail without stamps. But that mail would be
subject to the same sort of spam filters in use now, which
can at times divert legitimate mail. The Internet providers
would deliver all stamped mail without any filter. Goodmail
does not require that stamped mail be requested by the
recipient, the so-called opt-in requirement of most other
anti-spam systems.
"The very notion that I have to get permission to send you
a marketing message doesn't make sense and is not good
public policy," said Richard Gingras, Goodmail's chief
executive. Even so, he said that Goodmail would require
mailers to verify their identities and to take people off
their mailing lists if such a request was made.
This kind of approach would require major policy changes by
Internet providers, which all ban unsolicited e-mail even
if they have little ability to block it.
In fact, some experts worry that big spammers will indeed
pay the postage. Charles Stiles, manager of the postmaster
department at America Online, said he was concerned that
such a system might restrict the wrong mail, adding, "It is
the spammers who are the ones with the big pockets."
AOL is taking a different approach and is testing a system
under development by the Internet Research Task Force. The
system, called the Sender Permitted From, or S.P.F.,
creates a way for the owner of an Internet domain, like
aol.com, to specify which computers are authorized to send
e-mail with aol.com return addresses. That allows a
recipient's e-mail system to determine whether a message
being represented as coming from someone at aol.com really
is from that address. Most spam being sent now uses forged
return addresses.
Microsoft has been floating a similar proposal, labeled
"caller ID," that could be expanded in the future to
accommodate more sophisticated anti-spam approaches
including Internet postage systems. Discussions are under
way among the backers of S.P.F., Microsoft and others
involved in e-mail to reach a compromise sender
notification system.
All these proposals can run into problems because there are
legitimate cases when mail sent by one domain claims to be
from another. For example, online greeting-card services
will send messages with the return address of the person
sending the card, even though the message does not go
through the sender's e-mail account.
People taking part in the discussion say that companies
like greeting-card services may need to change their e-mail
software to comply with the new standards.
"Every proposed scheme will break parts of the way e-mail
works today," said Hans Peter Brondmo, a senior vice
president of Digital Impact who has represented big
e-mailers in the spam technology negotiations. The
challenge, he said, is to find a system that will require
as little retrofitting as possible to e-mail systems.
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