I have two ideas to eliminate spam. Could they work? If so, please invent them so I stop getting spam. Thanks. Idea 1: (Opt in email account via an organization like PayPal?) Imagine you sign up for an e-mail account with a well established organization like PayPal or Google; also assume you fund your account with say $3.00(+ or -). Now, their are only two ways a person can email that account: Method 1) they are "White Listed" and are therefore permitted to email you. Method 2) They must pay *you* a nickel ($0.05) or any amount you choose to have their email delivered to your inbox. If you e-mail a *stranger* with this type of account you would have to pay them a nickel (+ or -) to contact them, and they would have to pay you a nickel (+ or -) until of course you place each other on your 'white list'. Then of course it is free. Remember your account is funded with a big (sarcasm) $3.00 and that would allow you to contact 60 strangers; but in all actuality (unless your a spammer) the nickels you receive would offset the nickels you spend and your $3.00 could last several months, if not indefinitely. Idea 2: This one is simpler: You own domian.com Some hosting company writes a script that creates countless email addresses for domain.com. The key for this idea to work is it must be effortless for the user (one or two clicks from desktop) to create another email address. The idea is best explained by example. The script would produce email addresses that look like this: the_Email_Adress_I_Trusted_JoeBlow_Not_To_Share@Domain.com the_Email_Adress_I_Trusted_DukePower_Not_To_Share@Domain.com the_Email_Adress_I_Trusted_PublicForum_Not_To_Share@Domain.com etc. Each address would of course be forwarded to a central inbox. The idea (to flog a horse) is that you immediately identify spam, and who shared/sold your information. I do herby declare these two (half-baked) ideas to be public property and so, I do hereby enter them into the public domain (JR).
Idea 2 is already available with gmail. e.g if you're giving your email to LeBron, you could enter it as anions+lebron@gmail.com And then identify where the email came from, although a script can work around this really easily - but it's a start
I like the first idea. The only problem would be other companies contacting you. For example you register to something... You should have an option to allow certain domains. You could also use something like the popup blocker on fire fox. In terms of ability to pick trusted websites.
The first idea would work but convincing people to pay even in small quantities like that isn't going to fly with people. Why pay when I can get it free. I'll live with the spam. Having said that it is good to see ideas being thrown around. A good way (not bullet proof) is to create an account and NEVER place it on the net NEVER use it sign up for web accounts, etc. I have a hotmail acct that is over a year old and never has received 1 spam email (even in the spam filter). Skinny
I use something virtually identical to idea 2 and would recommend going with that idea. It takes a while to change over to using it (ie changing all your signups to different sites etc to ensure they have unique email adddresses...this probably took me about 6 months in total just doing it bit by bit). Once it's done it's reasonably simple to stop getting spam to one address though - just change the email for that one signup.
I agree with Skinny, I'll bet people would rather sift through e-mails then fuss with another method that makes emailing more difficult...
Yes....originally my mail was going to mysite@mysite.com but I think I got to a point of around 400 spams a day. I have a single file of passwords for all my signups to different sites (which I encrypt when I'm away from my PC). If I can remember correctly I started by going through this...logging into to the sites and changing my mysite@mysite.com to a_unique_name_for_this_site_login@mysite.com and ensuring I also set up an alias on my server's email program for that new unique name. For about 6 months (actually probably more time than that now I think about it) I kept the original mysite@mysite.com address still open to ensure I hadn't forgotten to change anywhere....eventually no real emails were being received at mysite@mysite.com (just the spam) so I no longer use the mysite@mysite.com address. What I now have are scores of email addresses but if you start getting spam from one source (ie to the one address you've used for that source) you can close down that one address (and set up a new one if you wish for that source) without needing to change anything for all your other logins/contacts. All these scores of email addresses redirect to one single "true" address which you need to ensure you keep totally hidden (set up and an email on, for example, excite, and send an email to your excite address and examine the full headers to ensure there's no sign of the true adress). In the unlikely event that someone ever does find that true address (which hasn't happened to me yet and isn't something that anyone should be able to do), it should only take a quick 10 minute change on your server's email setup to change the true address to a new hidden one. The only minor thing is you need to go into your server's email program to set up a new email for each site you join (for example I've got a unique email address here at digitalpoint which I don't use anywhere else, so when joining digital point I went to my server's email prog to set up that new address....only takes about 3 minutes (less if i'm already logged in to my server's control panel)).