I have no religion about top or bottom posting. Bottom posting is a variation of posting inline. On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, Larry Smith wrote: > Since you top posted, I will, against nature, respond in kind. > > The one "item" you missed from your analogy is that postal mail is "paid" for > up front, by the person "posting" (anon or not) - eg the post-office gets > paid _before_ your letter gets delivered. The problem with spam is that the > receipient is "paying" the cost (cod with no chance to refuse delivery)... This "spammers don't pay" claim isn't true, except for viruses. This myth was first leveled against Cyberpromo and others in the 1990s. But Cyberpromo (and the others) frequently had T1 connections that they paid for. We occasionally hear of "pink contracts" that spammers presumably pay more for. Commercial bulk emailers have always paid at least as much as everyone else. Sometimes more. Second, junk postal mail costs the recipient much, much more in time and trash handling, landfills, and garbage pickup than spam does. Both sender and receiver incur expenses with postal junk mail. An the case of postal mail, bulk mailers pay substantially _less_ than everyone else. Regular people pay 37 cents. I think bulk mail is still at 15 cents (it could be higher now). But even if the bulk mail rates are higher now, they are less than 37 cents. Imagine if we were to charge commercial bulk emailers less for their internet service. Third, for the case where viruses are used, the spam problem exists but pales in comparison to the problems of distributed DOS attacks, extortion of various sorts, and other criminal activity and mischief available to the virus operator. That they are "spamming on someone else's dime" is the least of the worries with a virus/botnet. -- Av8 Internet Prepared to pay a premium for better service? www.av8.net faster, more reliable, better service 617 344 9000 _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf