Is Money A Good Solution To Spam?

I have posted extensively on the Internet Axis of Evil and the list is a permanent placement at the bottom of the left sidebar of this blog:

I hate spam in all of its forms and the people who engage in it are criminals in my book ~~are in the same category as murderers and rapists~~ (edits at the suggestion of the commenters who I concur with).

So when I came out strongly against a "paid stamps" model for email in my post on January 30th of this year (possibly the first salvo in a loud and long response to the Goodmail initiative), I had to think hard about this issue. Is money a good solution to spam? I don't think it is.

But I totally agree with Esther Dyson's closing point in her op-ed column on the same subject in the New York Times this morning. Esther says:

If people like those little stamps that mark their mail as safe and wanted or as commercial transactions, then let the customers have them. And let other companies compete with Goodmail to offer better and less expensive service.

Goodmail isn't good because it's new, but neither is it bad because it's new. If it's a good model, it will succeed and improve over time. If it's a bad model, it will fail. Why not let the customers decide?

My outrage in that initial post was not about Goodmail. I think Goodmail has every right to promote a paid stamps model. It was that AOL had decided to go exclusively with Goodmail and was eliminating its "enhanced white list" program and was apparently not open to other white list solutions like Return Path's Bonded Sender and Habeas.

A lot has changed since that monday morning in late January. First AOL clarified its position and said that it was not going to phase out its enhanced white list. I responded with another post where I said:

If AOL and others want to offer a paid stamps program as a compliment to these other approaches, that is fine with me. But mandating paid stamps as the only solution, which is what was announced last week and now seems like an miscommunication, is a bad idea. I am glad everyone is coming to that conclusion.

And I believe that the other companies in this space, Return Path (where I am an investor and board member) and Habeas, are going to get a place in the white list at the major mail receivers. So Esther's call for competition is going to happen and the market will decide as long as the mail recievers maintain an open playing field for all.

But back to the question I asked in the subject of this post. Is money a good solution to spam? I don't think so because spam is not limited to email. It is the scourge of every open system on the Internet. You get Google spam, blog spam, comment spam, trackback spam, etc, etc.

Should I charge people to comment on this blog in order to elminate comment spam?

Should I charge people to trackback to this blog to eiminate trackback spam?

Should Google charge web pages to get into its index to eliminate search spam?

I don't think so. Approaches like those will eliminate all that is good about the Internet.

We have no choice but to work on reputation and trust systems. These are the long term solutions to spam and the Internet Axis of Evil in all of its forms.

I think we are very close to workable commercial whitelist solutions for email that are entirely reputation based. And I think these approaches can be adapted to work in other areas, if they aren't already.

So its fine with me if we have a competition for the best ideas in the marketplace. But my bets aren't around paid approaches. There's a better way and smart entrepreneurs armed with great technology will show it to us as long as the market remains open to such approaches.

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FRED WILSON HAS A GOOD RESPONSE to Esther Dyson's NYT OP-ED piece today about e-mail fees as a method of combating spam, and Goodmail in particular as a solution. I can't disagree with Esther more than I do. Tacking on [Read More]

Tracked on Mar 17, 2006 10:26:08 AM

Posted March 17, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

I guess a person who thinks "there is no absolute truth" would group spammers with murderers and rapists, but dude - seriously - get a grip. That second sentence is the most ridiculous thing I have read in many months.

Posted by: Matt | Mar 17, 2006 9:08:50 AM

Is spam a pain, annoying, and generally a nuisance. Sure. But murderers and rapists? Are you telling me the guy who shoots me an e-mail on penis enlargement herbs is in the same class as Andrea Yates? I really don't think so.

Posted by: Don | Mar 17, 2006 10:47:46 AM

"I hate spam in all of its forms and the people who engage in it are in the same category as murderers and rapists in my book."

Perhaps if you know someone who has been raped you will consider that opinion. There is no moral equivalence between rapists and spammers; yours is a rather ignorant comment.

Posted by: dave | Mar 17, 2006 11:13:02 AM

you gotta get over loosing the battle. You seem so bitter over good mail. All spam sucks. I don't care how they rid it - just rid it. Money is usually the answer to most problems so I'm happy with this aol/yahoo/goodmail initiative. Its a start.

Posted by: James | Mar 17, 2006 11:19:55 AM

Hmmm....

I dont like spam either but:

"I hate spam in all of its forms and the people who engage in it are in the same category as murderers and rapists in my book."

There are probably more than a few mourning families and emotionally devastated women that would cringe at this.

Perhaps a little restraint is in order.

Posted by: hank williams | Mar 17, 2006 11:25:10 AM

Got to agree here Fred, even tongue in cheek
"I hate spam in all of its forms and the people who engage in it are in the same category as murderers and rapists in my book" that was just plain dumb/grossly insensitive/ignorant.

And contrasts even dumber against the quality of your usual thoughts.

keith

Posted by: keith bohanna | Mar 17, 2006 3:09:08 PM

well Matt, Don, Dave, and Hank i see your point.

i didn't mean that spam is an equal crime to rape or murder, just that its a hateful and intentional crime in the same category.

my bad for a poor choice of words.

sorry about that.

Posted by: fred | Mar 17, 2006 3:23:43 PM

I'm not sure how I feel about a payment structure around email, but I would like to toss out a thought on it.

What if the model used money as micro-payments to the receiver instead of charges to the sender.

Most individuals receive more mail then they send - even if the outright spam is discounted. This would mean that, for most individuals, they would end up paying for all of the mails they send right from the credits they got from the mail they received. In other words, most people wouldn't end up paying anything. And for anyone that does pay, the results would probably be really small.

Since most email is commercial in nature, having costs borne by the corporations that send it would seem fair. Every other aspect of marketing costs something. Firms worried about clients contacting them could also setup 'free emails' for them where they cover the costs (like an 800 phone number combined with a whitelist).

Not-For-Profit organizations could apply for exemptions, but would need to be clearly certified, and easy to filter. The same can be true for political organizations.

If there was a straight forward way to do this that was handled by the ISP's, the dynamics of the participants could possibly make it work.

That all said, there is still unsettling about having to pay for email :-)

-john

Posted by: John | Mar 17, 2006 5:21:10 PM

Actually, it's my guess the only people with the slightest incentive to pay by the message to send email ARE the spammers.

Of course I think another big reason behind a system like this is to cut down on the phishing messages, but what's REALLY scary is what will happen when the thieves figure out how to scam the system. Then you will have what appears to be a "certified" message from, say, you bank, sitting in your inbox that is actually from the phishers.

Although I imagine something needs to be done at some point - and I think your original was right - maybe not the simple spammers, but phishers should be executed. Period.

Posted by: Axinar | Mar 17, 2006 11:44:24 PM

"Should I charge people to comment on this blog in order to elminate comment spam?"

I think you should not. We are testing a solution for eliminating comment spam, for free. It is based on the captcha method, similar to the solution you chose for your blog.

I suppose that you are asking yourself that because you still have problems with spam in comments. Fortunately, with our system we have no more problems.

With Cero Spam you can protect not only comment forms in your blog, but all kind of forms in other sites too.

Please, take a look of it (www.cerospam.com.ar) and send your thoughts to us. Thank you.

Posted by: Luciano | Mar 18, 2006 9:32:29 AM

You should note that Esther Dyson was a (paid?) moderator at last years direct email conference in NY. It was a fascinating look into the mindset of a whole BUNCH of people who are genuinely perplexed why people would not want to receive email from them.

Posted by: whatisee | Mar 26, 2006 12:00:18 AM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC