| One's Own Medicine |
28 April 2003
|
AOL Passes on Spam
As every reader of the Kensington Review knows by looking in the inbox of the e-mail account, unwanted messages from advertisers is a huge inconvenience and time waster. America On-Line has recently announced it is making war on this stuff, "spam" as it's unpopularly known. One wishes them luck and suggests that having made most of the mess, it is only fitting that AOL help clean it up. At the same time, they can will the tides to go out, too.
AOL is not the host of this publication, although some children of at least one staff member use it to access the internet. In the opinion of those here, it is mediocre at best, like Microsoft and Computer Associates. Its success lies in its marketing effort, not its engineering work. Literally million of free CDs have littered the globe to get people to try it, and still Earthlink is the prefered gateway here.
That said, spam does waste hours of computer-users' time each and every month and getting rid of it would be a good idea. The same with junk mail and unsolicitied telemarketing. However, e-mail is so incredibly cheap as to be free on a per piece basis. Naturally, simple martket forces say that a free good will be consumed endlessly. So the solution is to charge for the right to e-mail junk.
For just $10,000,000 a year, give certain firms the right to e-mail spam. Let them trade the rights to clutter mail-boxes on a bulk basis. For everyone else, spamming should be a crime, a felony. Prosecute those without the cash to buy the right should they ever send out an unsolicited piece of mail. Of course, to enforce this, the FBI should have the ability to read e-mail at random and without the knowledge of the sender or the receiver. Files should be kept on each and every e-mail account, and ISPs should have to turn over all account information on demand without tying things up with warrants and court orders.
On second thought, just hit the delete key -- repeatedly and frequently.