Alternatives Proposed to Replace Current Email Model, Pros and Cons. April 2004.

Many Proposals, Little Agreement Yet, Especially Over Proposed Micropayments. Do you really want to have to pay Microsoft for every email you sent?

Alternative Email Models News Roundup

Click here for Prior Page of Alternative Proposals News.
To understand the folly and motives of Bill Gates and Verisign and others on fee based email, be sure to read
Alternatives to Current Email Technology, Pros and Cons:
         March 2004 Commentary by Gordon Peterson on Microsoft Email Proposals
         March 2004 Commentary by Rich Kulawiec on Microsoft Email Proposals

Microsoft to flag 'good' spam
    MICROSOFT has contracted for a service that lets email from legitimate companies more easily reach people's inboxes
              Australian IT. May 6, 2004.
    [Ed. Note: I am just all aflutter at the idea of Microsoft deciding what email heading into my inbox is spam or not spam. I am sure that gobs of money changing hands with Microsoft will having nothing to do with it, of course.

    infoworld.dom. April 16, 2004.
    Paul Boutin, author of our cover story "Can e-mail be saved?", well remembers the mid-’90s, when many IT pros believed that putting everybody online would be disastrous for workplace productivity.
    “They were right,” he says, “but not for the reasons they thought.”
    The naysayers of that era envisioned time-frittering online diversions. They weren’t fretting about spam, which has effectively reduced e-mail to a massive time and productivity sink. When we approached Boutin to investigate solutions to the current e-mail logjam, we asked him to look beyond the conventional anti-spam fixes.
         Spam salvation. Six visionaries go to the drawing board to reinvent e-mail

    prnewswire.com. April 8, 2004.
    The Internet community must act now to eliminate spam. The seriousness of the spam problem goes far beyond the mere annoyance of flooded email inboxes and offensive messages: spam threatens the viability of email as a communications medium. The degree of pollution is so severe that regular users are finding it difficult to justify using email at all. As a result, the very utility of the Internet is downgraded. When it comes to spam, we are all harmed in terms of productivity.
         Eradicate Spam by Adopting Microsoft's Penny Black Anti-Spam Solution, Urges Email Marketing Industry Pioneer
        [Ed. Note: I totally disagree with the assertions of the person quoted in this press release, but it belongs under this heading nevertheless. The idea that I should have to pay Microsoft or anyone else a penny or whatever micropayment dreamed up to send and receive email on the Internet from servers I bought, own, and control, is actually pretty laughable. This proposal is not the solution. Progressively cutting off ISPs and nodes on the Internet that spam and now allowing them access to the Internet is the answer. Pure and simple. I do not believe I should be punished financially or operationally because of the criminal actions of spammer scum.]
         Same release carried on yahoo.com prenews.