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General discussion

Why Bill Gates' antispam plan won't work

Feb 2, 2004 12:31AM PST

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Monday, Feb. 2, 2004

News flash from Davos, Switzerland: The end of spam is near! And it's going to come, Bill Gates predicted at the World Economic Forum, because we're going to make it unprofitable to send. Taken another way: Accepting unsolicited commerical e-mail could become a small source of added income for us all.

"Two years from now, spam will be solved," Gates reportedly told a "select group" of the already select group that gathers each year in Switzerland to do what the rich and powerful do, which I think is plan to become even richer and more powerful (doubtless at our expense).

THINK ABOUT IT: If Bill Gates has his way (as is so often the case), each of us would establish a price for accepting uninvited e-mail. Thus a company sending an e-mail campaign might have 50 cents at risk for each of a million e-mails being sent, or $500,000 total. I bet that would make someone think before pressing the "send" button.

More: http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_16-5119564.html?tag=adts

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