Re: 6. Solutions - Longterm - Replacing SMTP (Re: [Asrg] Bogus reasoning)

Elric, that is exactly correct. I'd say it isn't necessary to see if the 
email was delivered just that it was sent (think about the USPS - even 
if the mail doesn't make it to the destination you still put a stamp on 
it). Monitoring of traffic by an ISP isn't all that difficult.

The point isn't that anything costs anymore actually. You are merely 
trying to provide an economic disadvantage to sending out a million 
email messages!

Chuck Wegrzyn

Elric Pedder wrote:

>>From: asrg-admin@ietf.org [mailto:asrg-admin@ietf.org] On 
>>Behalf Of C. Wegrzyn
>>Sent: July 2, 2003 16:38
>>To: Barry Shein
>>Cc: gep2@terabites.com; Yakov Shafranovich; asrg@ietf.org
>>Subject: Re: 6. Solutions - Longterm - Replacing SMTP (Re: 
>>[Asrg] Bogus reasoning)
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
>>I believe the only real alternative is for every ISP (and 
>>this can be done I believe) to take on a per-email 
>>transaction fee.
>>    
>>
>
>This proposal is made quite often, but I cannot see how it
>would work.
>
>SMTP does not require the participation of any ISP other than
>for the transmission of packets.  In order to levy a charge,
>the ISP would have to monitor your traffic, detect SMTP 
>usage, detect actual e-mail delivery, and bill you for it.
>
>What you create is an incentive for users to avoid the
>detection of SMTP delivery -- a whole new problem.
>
>Without getting in to the "big brother" concepts or using
>some sort of "centralised register of authorised e-mail
>delivery agents" perhaps ISPs could bill a higher rate for 
>port 25-destined traffic than other traffic, and require that 
>every SMTP transaction contain only one RCPT address.
>
>Unfortunately port 25-destined traffic does not actually
>cost any more than other-port-destined traffic.  Therefore
>in a competitive marketplace prices will be driven down to
>cost+margin.
>
>The only weapon I can think of against market competition is
>the government.  So... would you accept a government tax on
>e-mail?  
>
>Ultimately, I just don't see how you could charge for e-mail.
>
>  
>

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