WebSitesOfNote

Cohn on charging for e-mail: "Cindy Cohn doesn't like the AOL/Yahoo pay-to-send e-mail scheme: The justification is that if people have to pay to send email, they won't send junk email. Apparently AOL and Yahoo believe that if we 'tax' speech then only desirable speech happens. We all know how well that works for postal mail -- that's why no one gets any 'free' AOL starter disks, right? I don't think this argument actually holds up that well. The volume of junk paper mail that most people get is far less than the volume of spam people get. So, while it's true that people get a lot of junk paper mail, it also seems true that the fact that there's some cost associated with it substantially reduces the amount you get. And note that I don't get any pornographic paper junk mail--unless you count the Victoria's Secret catalog. Now, you can say this is because the sender is identified and the USPS can track them down, but at least the identified part would be true in a pay-for-service system too. If email senders bear a burden, who gains? Not Yahoo and AOL customers, whose email boxes are being sold off. It will presumably be harder for even desired email to reach them. This is obviously a real concern that I raised in my original message. But, then, as Kevin Dick observes, if the market is competitive, then people can switch"