CentMail - Would you pay a cent per email to fight spam?



Yahoo’s researchers want you to voluntarily slap a one-cent stamp on your outgoing e-mails, with proceeds going to charity, in a bid to cut down on spam. Can doing good really do away with spam, which consumes 33 terawatt hours of electricity every year, not to mention way too much of our time?

The idea behind CentMail is that paying to send e-mail – even a single cent – differentiates a real e-mail from spam blasts, and thus, spam filters can be adjusted to let the stamped mail sail right through, according to a report from New Scientist.

Users would get to choose which charity benefits from their penny missives, which the researchers hope will convince people to pay CentMail for something that’s currently free.

To avoid the micro-payment problem, users would pre-pay.

Quite an interesting idea - what do you think?
Please comment below.
CentMail - Would you pay a cent per email to fight spam?

CentMail - Would you pay a cent per email to fight spam?

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Guest: Simon (208 days ago)

Stamped mail to go right through? What when the richer spam companies want to blast us? They'll have a direct route to our inboxes. Silly idea will cost more to admin than it will make I suspect.
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Guest (208 days ago)

Why not develop a more secure mail protocol instead? For instance you send a 'header' message to a recipient which has the address of your mail server in it - the recipient then can chose download the body of the email from your server when they read the initial header message.
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Guest (208 days ago)

An interesting idea, but it won't work! just look at snail mail, you have to pay to send that and the companies still send you cr*p and that costs more than a cent to send. A cent for an e-mail will not stop spam!
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Guest: Al the Biker - what a douche (207 days ago)

Latest comment: "a noble idea. Al the biker defines the word 'idiot'. 1. paying for the internet desnt equate to free email 2. email clients are available for free. loads of them. everywhere. sure you can pay for them. you can pay for anything if you want, right? 3. did you not read the article? The idea is to give the money to CHARITY. This probably means it will go towards housing your estranged wife and bastard children. SO you really should get behind it, may save you a quid. "
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Guest: AL the Biker (208 days ago)

Just another way to bilk money out of us. I can imagine the logical conclusion - anyone who doesn't pay money cannot send email. So we pay for our broadband AND for the email client (if you have Outlook etc) AND now for the actual email as well ?!! And also its an excuse to shift the blame onto the consumer - its your fault cos you don't pay so we can't filter it properly.
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Guest: Edward (209 days ago)

Interesting idea, but big business would soon negotiate "quantity discouts" with the e-mail providers and would only pay 0.000001 cents per e-mail so they can still bombard us with what we would call spam and they would describe as "marketing materials". I also suspect that once the principle was established, the cost per e-mail would start to rise, and not quite all the money raised would go to charity, some would be syphoned off in "administration charges"
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Guest: romanian guy (208 days ago)

i agree!
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rodmanhattenRodManhatten (208 days ago)

It's not 'big business' that's doing the spamming.
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Guest: koko the wonder dingo (208 days ago)

Screw that plan. If I don't want to read some crap someone sends, it's free to simply "delete". I will, however, happily boycott any company or product that slows my computer with its advertising.
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Guest: walt (209 days ago)

you should be able to select a few people you may email for free. I use email instead of texting because its cheaper. i would not subscribe to yahoo, i'm happy with gmail
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Guest (207 days ago)

What is e-mail?
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Guest: Craig Sawyer (209 days ago)

If it went to charity with the sender getting credit for the donation, then yes. I send out an email newsletter twice a month, so it would cost me an extra $25 a month, but it would be worth it.
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Guest: christophe (208 days ago)

It is the Tobin Tax.
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searchguruSearchguru (209 days ago)

I'd pay the sterling equivalent to get rid of Sam!
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Guest: jon (208 days ago)

I would also pay to get rid of Sam. I've never cared for him.
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Guest: cartman (208 days ago)

True sam's a right basterd, Id pay a good few pennies!
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Guest (209 days ago)

I would match this idea if my hard earnt cent or penny was matched by the corporations that propose this idea did the same - and the balance sheet of the charity could prove they had paid the same amounts and recieved no free adverts etc etc - I hate stealth tax as it is.
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