Spam costs and questions

A friend who's going to be speaking on one of the FTC panels next week
sent me a few questions about spam. Does anyone want to try their hand at
answering them? I'll forward along all responses I get.

	What are the costs to consumers of
	unsolicited e-mail?  I guess the time it
	takes to delete it might be one, hard
	drive space might be another.  I would
	like to know how to quantify it, and
	compare it with the cost of sending
	e-mail.

	If you banned commercial e-mail,
	wouldn't it just affect legitimate
	commercial transactions?  That is to say,
	wouldn't fly-by-night pyramid-scheme
	builders still be able to spam?  I would
	think that if they are so untraceable
	that it's hard to block their spam that
	it wouldn't really matter if it were
	simply made illegal.

-Declan

On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> 	If you banned commercial e-mail,
> 	wouldn't it just affect legitimate
> 	commercial transactions?  That is to say,
> 	wouldn't fly-by-night pyramid-scheme
> 	builders still be able to spam?  I would
> 	think that if they are so untraceable
> 	that it's hard to block their spam that
> 	it wouldn't really matter if it were
> 	simply made illegal.

This reminded me of a thought I had this morning...

If the Unibomber had actually wanted to improve his reputation capitol, he
should have gane about things differently.

Instead of going after college professors and the like (which only appeals
to MUDers and other people failing thair classes) he should have taken on
a different group.

If he had issued out a Make Money Fast pyramid scheme with his PO box as
one of the addresses and then sent bombs to those who responded, he would
have been the hero to millions.  By eliminating would-be spammers from the
downline of life, he would have been the savior to millions.  he would
have web pages in his honor.  He would have bumper stickers with such
slogans as "SPAM = DEATH" made in his honor.

But he blew it...

I guess we can only dream of it happening in our lifetime...

alano@teleport.com | "Those who are without history are doomed to retype it."

At 12:45 PM -0700 6/4/97, Declan McCullagh asked:
>	What are the costs to consumers of
>	unsolicited e-mail?  I guess the time it
>	takes to delete it might be one, hard
>	drive space might be another.  I would
>	like to know how to quantify it, and
>	compare it with the cost of sending
>	e-mail.

I don't think the costs of the 1-3 spam messages I get each day is
significant.  (But I don't post to Usenet.)


>	If you banned commercial e-mail,
>	wouldn't it just affect legitimate
>	commercial transactions?  That is to say,
>	wouldn't fly-by-night pyramid-scheme
>	builders still be able to spam?  I would
>	think that if they are so untraceable
>	that it's hard to block their spam that
>	it wouldn't really matter if it were
>	simply made illegal.

Can you say regulatory arbitrage?  The current social controls on spam are
good enough that no one with any positive reputation wants to have anything
to do with it.  This means that spammers have to use anonymous offshore
answering services.  The widespread hatred of spam and spammers should keep
the total amount under control without the legal action and in spite of the
very low cost of spamming.

The recent problems Spamford has been having with denial of service attacks
is just one example of the social control process.  The flood of hostile
email spammers who include real email addresses receive are another.
Legitimate commercial email does not evoke these strong reactions.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz       | The Internet was designed  | Periwinkle -- Consulting
(408)356-8506     | to protect the free world  | 16345 Englewood Ave.
frantz@netcom.com | from hostile governments.  | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

Bill Frantz <frantz@netcom.com> writes:

> At 12:45 PM -0700 6/4/97, Declan McCullagh asked:
> >	What are the costs to consumers of
> >	unsolicited e-mail?  I guess the time it
> >	takes to delete it might be one, hard
> >	drive space might be another.  I would
> >	like to know how to quantify it, and
> >	compare it with the cost of sending
> >	e-mail.
>
> I don't think the costs of the 1-3 spam messages I get each day is
> significant.  (But I don't post to Usenet.)

I post moderately heavily to Usenet (10-10 articles / week).

All the UCE I get is much less in volume that, e.g., the traffic from
the Cypherpunks mailing list. In some weeks it's only 1 or 2 pieces.

I may be getting so little UCE because I've asked Wallace to remove
me from his mailing list, so I only get it from "rogue rogues".

It takes me no material time to browse the subject lines and to skip
the UCE. (Sometimes I do read the UCE - some of the products they've
advertised sounded interesting to me). Nor am I paying to receive
anything. (Given that I get mailbombed pretty regularly, I wouldn't
go for anything other than flat rate.)

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps