Re "Programmers, state compete to kill Internet spam," Daniel Weintraub column, April 1: Although I support legislation to
extend the legal standing of plaintiffs and define damages that can be sought from spammers, a legislative solution to the
e-mail spam problem is unlikely to take more than a small bite out of the growing problem.
The only long-term solution to unsolicited e-mail advertising is to find a way to shift the costs of spam back to the sender.
This is what the legislative approach attempts, and it will be the basis of any workable technological solution. There are many
proposals for a technological solution involving micro-payments, but the implementation is a long way off, and currently we
e-mail users are unwilling to accept that e-mail isn't free.
As soon as dealing with spam becomes too costly, either because of the costs of purchasing and maintaining filters, or
because of losses associated to unreliable communication, then we'll be ready to accept a small cost for sending each e-mail
and the market will quickly provide a solution because it will be profitable to do so. Until then, we're destined to see our
mailboxes overflow and the value of e-mail decline.