OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

I received this e-mail from a close friend earlier today:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Considering that about half of what we already pay for telephone services goes to state and federal taxes and fees (examine your phone bill), if true and accurate, this measure represents another huge governmental grab for our wallets. Worth investigating?

[ February 20, 2004, 17:45: Message edited by: Cipher7071 ]

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

I wish it was just some wishful thinging on Congress's part, but as we all know, if Congress thinks it can get some more money in their pockets, they'll tax anything and everything. I'm still hoping this is all talk, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if e-mails get taxed. Not only by the feds, but maybe even the states and cities would want a piece of the pie. Let's hope not.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

Isn't this an ongoing hoax?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

We can always hope it's a hoax, but it should not be too difficult to find out whether or not the mentioned bill actually exists.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

well, if the sender was billed and not the recipient, it could cut down on spam.

personally, i don't think much of that kind of money grab, i'm just argueing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

Hoax!

Go here:

http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/emailtax.html

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

BTW:
www.urbanlegends.com
is a great site anytime you get / see something where your first reation is:
"Oh my god!!!!"
Always check their first.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

Even if it were real, it would be impossible to enforce without revealing all that tech the guys with the tinfoil hats fear.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

Another clue would be that House bills start with HR and Senate bills start with S. I've never seen a "602P" anywhere.

*shakes head, wondering what they teach in high school civics these days* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[edit]That should be HB, not HR.

*shakes head, wondering how early Alzheimer's can start* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ February 20, 2004, 22:25: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

Sooooo....it was easy after all. I marked that urban legends website for future reference.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

If an actual bill was to release, the price should be somewhat more reasonable, if it can prevent spam from continuing it's rather irritating progression.

I just used a computer calculator to see what the costs were if such a bill was passed to charge $0.01 for 1 email that is sent by one person for 365 days:

$0.01 x 365(once per day): $3.65
$3.65 x 100,000(emails, bulk.): $365,000.

That is quite a hefty charge if a person sent email in bulk, let's say they tried to send 1,000 emails for 365 days, at the same price:

$0.01 x 1,000: $10
$10 x 365(10 times per day): $3,650
$3,650 x 100,000(emails per day): $3.65e+008

Mind you, my calculation skills are rather horrible, so these may be inaccurate.

However, if they are accurate, then a 1-cent charge per email can reduce the amount of emails made by those who create spam, due to the enormous bill they would acquire.

However, how would this affect real companies? I believe if they send a large amount of e-mail, perhaps they can acquire licenses from the government to reduce/eliminate the costs.
(Though that would make them a major target for spam creators.)

However, the money the government makes can be placed into policing spammer activities, which can lead to a very profitable cycle.(Or disasterous, if the amount of spam creation gets too low, which may prompt the abandoning of the enforcement agencies, therefore leading to more spam being created.)

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

how about 0.00001^2 per email? would cut down spammers, but not really affect anybody else.

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

When I came in today from round 1 of scooping snow from my driveway, I put on some soup and decided to watch a little TV with lunch. 'The McLaughlin Group' (political discussion) was on PBS. Somewhere toward the end of it, up came a picture of our old buddy Bill Gates advocating what...? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

You guessed it: the very topic of this thread. It seems he is now advocating a 1 cent per e-mail fee as a solution to spam. The story said that about 58% of e-mail is spam, and Bill Gates seems to think that the problem will be solved in 2 years. He must see a buck in it for Microsoft somewhere.

Maybe that's what spawned the return of that urban legend. Just when I thought this thread was headed for the boneyard...

[ February 22, 2004, 17:23: Message edited by: Cipher7071 ]

Re: OT: Charge / tax per e-mail?
 

I read a Sci-Fi book that seemed to have a good idea. Everyone could set the price for recieving Email. You would pay that price to send email to that address. If someone sent a message to your $100 box, you would tend to pay attention. If they sent it too your 5 cent or 1 cent less so. You could then do a reply to cancel the fee. This still has some problems like address spoffing, money landering, ect, but it does seem to be a possible start.

Why let the goverment in, http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif can't we be greedy too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

I don't remember the book name, but it was about a Beserker type device attacking earth every 5 years. Not a "Beserker" Beserker http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , but a planetoid machine like the Saber...n kind.