A better solution, a more refined version of this: require all ISP's to
acquire certification from an authoritative body. This body only
grants the certification to known, reputable ISP's who agree to abide by a code
of ethics which prohibits, of course, spam.
When a mail is sent by this ISP, it includes code in it's headers indicating
that it is certified: the mail is accepted. It should work like
public/private key encryption.
Consumers can be offered the option of signing on with certified ISPs and can
then acquire mail programs that filter any mail that does not come from a
certified ISP.
If someone really wants to connect to the unfiltered internet, so be it:
allow it. But the rest of us can benefit from some controls.
[2011-12-26]
I am deluged with 10-20 spam a day. I hate spam with a
passion. It clutters up my electronic mailbox the way analog spam clutters up my
real mail-box-- and wastes my time. My first act, when reading my e-mail, is to
delete, delete, delete.
The worst thing about spam is that these people are annoying you at your
expense. They are quite literally parasites. You pay for your
e-mail account, and you pay for the cost of accessing the internet. For some people
in Europe, who actually pay by the minute, spam can actually be quite costly.
The solution is real simple-- if someone would step in and require it.
Every major e-mail program should be required to install a default filter.
The filter simply rejects all spam. How will it know what spam is? All
companies using email for advertising will be required to clearly mark spam with a couple
of bytes in the header of each message.
Now wait a minute-- we're talking about the internet here. The
government can't even stop people from downloading "The Matrix" in DivX;) format
from some server in Russia. How is it going to shut down spammers who don't use the
required bytes in their headers?
Well, if they think they can shut down the illegal copying of music
files by shutting down Napster, they certainly ought to give it a try.
On the other hand, if they realize that shutting down Napster is a
gesture that is utterly devoid of the slightest possible real impact on the downloading of
pirated music... they ought to simply admit it and get on with things.
The truth is, they could do it. It would be quite simple.
Every ISP in the country would be required to install filters to prevent spam from
getting through. Foreign ISPs that allow spam through should be blocked from
transmitting to or receiving from North American or European ISPs.
