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

> 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.

-- 
Elric Pedder
Mailtraq Development (www.mailtraq.com)

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