Interesting that this case was successful. If MySpace can be protected by the law what about every other social network or e-mail service. My WordPress Blog gets 100’s a day, 1000’s a month, and my GMail e-mail accounts get 1000 and 3000 apiece each month.
The (free) spam filters are 99% effective, but it’s a criminal drain on resources. I really believe in the idea of charging for all e-mails, posts and comments – just a very small marginal cost would raise significant money for some worthwhile cause, but would price the malicious timewasters and freeloaders out of business
Hmmm. I have to say – I disagree with you here. I think that charging for emails/posting/comments would be a tax on communications. I do not support fees or charges for digital utility, unless that service is a new software design, software module or a community/membership situation (or connection of course.) The issues of spam and other not so friendly internet offenses (child porn, identity theft/security etc.) will have to be dealt with eventually (might I suggest a self policing network) and these cases are paramount to that change. It is easy to manage a group of people on one land mass; it is quite a different challenge (that takes new ideas/problem solving and newly integrated sociological aspects) to do so on a world wide web that is ever progressing. But, with almost every challenge, I believe there is a human solution; it simply takes time.
In the meantime, upgrading your spamware and botware should ease your pain 🙂
It would be exactly that KAS, that’s true.
I’m talking a very, very small rate of course; I just think on balance it might be a positive thing.
It would be a natural incentive against bulk spamming / posting without being much of a burden on any legitimate user, and more cost-effective than any policing.
Is your objection on principle, or do believe there are better ways to deal with it in practice. (As I say, spamware is very effective, at protecting me from the spam inbox nuisance, but it is still theft of an enormous amount of bandwidth from the community.)
I could easily be talking gibberish here as I am no expert on these topics.
But, what is lost in ignorance is gained in knowledge…
I envision a software built to auto police while working alongside a self policing (international) human network. It would consist of software designed on a protocol level that integrates reporting features, data organization and auto programming. It could be built off of a communications ‘kink’ that would catch and filter communication data at various instituted ‘intersections’. Then, you could also build a website (as the front end) of which would be available for ‘reinstatement requests’ and for an additional reporting link. You would report spam through your email provider/host. Bots and ‘ware would be caught in the filter. The reported (spam/websites) and filtered (‘ware and bots) would all go into a sorting process of which all the bots and ‘ware would auto destroy – by a research program that gathers its source information and ‘disconnects’ that link or through anti programming. Then the reported spam would also auto destroy via disconnects or anti programming. Lastly, websites would filter for applicable text/file name that would categorize it as crime against humanity (terrorist activity, child porn, fraud sites) and these sites go to a human connection for decision/investigation. All other sites are deleted from storage automatically and permanently. The extent of ‘power’ here would have to be extremely limited and would have to be hosted internationally; for agreement purposes as well as ‘power hungry’ purposes. The last country I would want to run this – is the USA (unless it was civilian based, not government.) Information would have to be specifically collected by software, so as to avoid abuse of the data; except for the human connection necessary to decide upon questionable websites. The funding for this would be small as it would be contributed by all countries via the governments’ under national defense funding (we could maybe stop going to war with the world and put aside a few thousand;) or, it could even by funded imaginatively – by advertising it to the worlds businesses and asking for support/pledged funding. Although it would take ‘breakthrough programming’ and complicated design – I don’t see how it is impossible.
Far fetched maybe…
I am not in disagreement due to principal; I am in disagreement to a communications tax because it is not practical. Affordability for one, in a country in which our lower class is not getting any richer and the costs of basic staples are rising — a communications tax would disconnect humans from the web as well as discourage others. I also don’t like to report my information or display it for others to abuse, and find paying for additional internet utility an unnecessary use of my financial data; even if it is only cents.
KAS
Hi Kas,
This is not a technical problem – so our levels of expertise are not the issues.
As you say yourself it’s the Who ? and the How to fund ? questions that are tricky.
(You are in fact sugesting a tax too – just indirect through existing tax arrangements – all we are really debating is how to collect & allocate the tax.)
Some interesting thoughts/
Ian