Re: Newsletter Spam?

From: Matt Magri <matt_at_netmeg.net>
Date: Tue 30 Nov 1999 13:56:20 -0500

JORGE WROTE:
> I would like to ask a question of the spam logic.
> Please don't take this as an approval of spam, I am
> highly against it for possibly different reasons.
> Although the reason of expense makes sense, I still
> can't seem to pinpoint where the expense arises, for me
> anyway, since I pay a pre-set monthly fee for my
> service and that is the end of that. Regardless of how
> much mail I recieve or send. Some people have free
> service. [ ... ]

Well, they don't have free service, of course, they just
don't pay for it with money. ;-)

> [ ... ] I am aware I may be missing a point and thus
> the reason for my inquiry.

You are only focusing on the monetary expense you face
as an end-user. The price that an ISP may charge for
access is determined by the marketplace and is, as a
result, not directly tied to what it costs to provide a
service. Spam definitely produces an additional load on
servers, usually in proportion to the size of the
customer base. Particularly ill-timed barrages have
even brought servers to their knees. Since the
providers can't directly pass the cost onto the spammer
or the customer, they have to take whatever steps they
can to reduce the amount of spam going into and out of
their servers. These can include blocking mail
connections from known ISP dialups, blocking
connections from sites which don't control spamming by
their customers/users (or which leave their mailservers
open to use by spammers elsewhere), applying
hair-trigger antispam policies, blocking the use of
certain types of connections to the outside world, etc.

IMHO, these -are- costs being passed onto the
customers, just not monetary ones. When Netcom was
blocked by the RBL, customers of ISPs which use the RBL
to cut down on the most aggregious spam were unable to
get any mail from anyone, businesses or individuals, at
Netcom. When PacBell Internet's mailserver was pushed
over the edge by a spam barrage, PBI's customer mail
service was unavailable. When a provider spends money
for an antispam service, feature, or equipment upgrade,
that comes out of money that could be spent on the
Internet service itself. Anybody who has tried to send
email out through their regular provider's mailserver
while dialed up to another provider and gotten a
"relaying denied" message has run right up against one
of the costs spam has levied on the rest of us. Folks
with perfectly valid opt-in services also have to deal
with the hypersensitivity that the spammers have
inspired in most Internet users and all providers.
People who have to wade through a bunch of cruft in
their mailbox simply because they once posted a message
about Chewbacca on a newsgroup are paying a cost, as
well.

You are right that the Internet mail system isn't
designed to charge people money per message. It is, for
better or worse, a trust-based system that places the
monetary cost for email delivery on the deliverers.
That does not mean there aren't costs, or that those
costs aren't passed on to customers in one form or
another.

Matt
--
Matt Magri
Netmeg Internet




Received on Tue Nov 30 1999 - 12:56:20 CST