AOL and Yahoo to Offer Filter Circumvention

tiltowait wrote to mention a report on MSNBC's site stating that AOL and Yahoo are both planning to introduce a for-pay way to circumvent their spam filters. From the article: "The fees, which would range from 1/4 cent to 1 cent per e-mail, are the latest attempts by the companies to weed out unsolicited ads, commonly called spam, and identity-theft scams. In exchange for paying, e-mail senders will be guaranteed their messages won't be filtered and will bear a seal alerting recipients they're legitimate."

Micropayments?

[Mr.Fork]

Didn't a company called Javien try out a micropayment system for Spam emails back in early 2001? Hyperion or something I thought it was called. Instead of the ISP charging for emails, email account owners could charge back to spammers willing to give them $coin$ to send their message.

Personally, I would rather receive a few dollars for spammers to send me emails. Since I get over 400 a day, if I charged a cent a spam, that would mean $1460 a year just to receive spam.

Bout time they started charging back the costs of handling spam, but I think it's in the wrong hands...

Zonk forgot to add...

[davidwr]

I was gonna call dupe-sies but the Yahoo bit is new.

Zonk should've added

Previously covered here [slashdot.org].

Re:How does this prevent spam?

[MikeFM]

Yeah, but that is actually a pain and last time I checked (more involved than just opening the message and looking at it) and didn't pay you $1 per message. My mother does that and gets crappy little gift cards worth a fraction of the money she could earn in a job working the same number of hours. She could earn more spending that time writing random things down in a blog and collecting ad money from the site.

Re:The post office charges

[cqnn]

Bulk mail and postcard rates are significantly less than letter rate
(37 cents).

  Most of the scams (get rich quick schemes and luck spreading chain mails)
have moved to email as a cheaper alternative. And many of the other
types (mortgage/refinance offers, catalogs, sales flyers) are starting
to move that way too.

Monopoly

[tepples]

If they want to receive your newsletter, they'll get AOL and Yahoo to let you through for free, or they'll move elsewhere.

Customers can't always move elsewhere without actually moving elsewhere. In many places, the only broadband provider is RoadRunner (owned by same corporate parent as AOL) or SBC (who has partnered with Yahoo!). AOL's dial-up coverage also tends to be better than other nationwide ISPs, which is important to users who travel far from public wireless hotspots.

Re: If this prevents spam I'm Monty Python

[WillAffleckUW]

Afterall, I never get spam mail in my snail mail where it costs like $.40 to send. All those ads and various other junkmail are my imagination.

Actually, it only costs them 4.5 cents to send you junk mail via the USPS. It costs non-profits about the same as well.

Only the peasants in Soviet America pay 39 cents to send letters. Businesses pay one-tenth the amount.

Re: If this prevents spam I'm Monty Python

[monkeydo]

Only the peasants in Soviet America pay 39 cents to send letters. Businesses pay one-tenth the amount.

Are you uninformed or a troll? To get discouts on bulk-mailings business jump through a bunch of hoops like presorting, bundling, and barcoding their own mail. These mailings also aren't sent First Class. Essentially, the bulk mailers are saving USPS work, and USPS is rewarding them with an appropriately lower rate.

If you care to inform yourself [usps.com]

Re: If this prevents spam I'm Monty Python and Son

[monkeydo]

Neither. I made a statement of fact that spam (in terms of bulk mail) is at a cheaper rate even via the USPS - many people don't realize that they pay a much higher rate to send mail than a business or non-profit does.

But your statement is (still) bullshit. Businesses do not pay less for the same service that you or I do, and the same service that they are buying is available to you, if you send out bulk mailings. It isn't true to say that "bulk mail is cheaper", or "companies pay less", since you are talking about a specific class and category of mail, and whether or not it is cheaper is debateable, since some of USPS's costs (sorting, etc.) are simply shifted to the mailer.

Re: If this prevents spam I'm Monty Python

[kesuki]

well, there are these things called 'postage meters' you put a sealed envelope on a scale/printer combo, and press a button and you pay the postage for the EXACT weight. 39 cents is for a full OUNCE of non-presorted mail. meters are available to anyone, there are websites that sell the devices... and you can 'refil' their postage over the internet. (they can only print a metered amount if they have an account with sufficient funds to deduct from to print the postage mark) you can send the mail un-presorted, just like any other piece of mail, savings can be signifigant.

now, if they're mailing you a little post card presorting it, and in their pre sort facility they fill the mailbags up by 25 lbs sacks they pay by the pound of mail, at what comes out to a Very Discounted rate.

for post card sized mailings it could well turn out to cost 3.9 cents, or less.