City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions 439
New submitter Christopher Fritz writes "The Berkeley, CA city council recently met to discuss the closing of their downtown post office, in attempt to find a way to keep it from relocating. This included talk of 'a very tiny tax' to help keep the U.S. Post Office's vital functions going. The suggestion came from Berkeley City Councilman Gordon Wozniak: 'There should be something like a bit tax. I mean a bit tax could be a cent per gigabit and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year And there should be, also, a very tiny tax on email.' He says a one-hundredth of a cent per e-mail tax could discourage spam while not impacting the typical Internet user, and a sales tax on Internet transactions could help fund 'vital functions that the post office serves.' We all know an e-mail tax is infeasible, and sales tax for online purchases and for digital purchases are likely unavoidable forever, but here's hoping talk of taxing data usage doesn't work its way to Washington."
FP? (Score:4, Funny)
Good luck taxing e-mails sent from privately maintained offshore servers. :P
-uso.
Re:FP? (Score:5, Insightful)
No tax ever stays in the advertised form.
Just in case someone reads this who has not experienced many examples already, consider the US federal income tax. The amendment describes a progressive tax of 1, 2, or 3 percent, and the reason it does not include the original line of "and not to exceed 10 percent" is because the politicians of the day thought that adding such a line would be seen as permission to raise the tax to 10 percent by their successors.
I have in Real Life(TM) ranted plentifully about road and bridge projects with a toll that were sold as "until the building cost is paid off" but persist many decades after all possible construction expenses had been paid simply because the regional government likes the revenue.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Interesting)
Regarding bridges/roads and tolls: One of the rationales for keeping tolls on roads and bridges is to collect money to maintain the roads/bridges once they are paid off. I've seen this reasoning used in three states, and in all cases the tolls were increased "because the cost of maintaining the roads keeps going up." In Cook County IL, the real reason the tolls were kept on is because sub-standard work had to be torn up and re-done -- multiple times. The reason the work was sub-standard is left as an exercise to the reader.
I've never lived in a state where the tolls were retired and the booths torn down.
Dig a little deeper, and you find out that the governments appreciate how tolls free up general revenue for other spending.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Informative)
I've never lived in a state where the tolls were retired and the booths torn down.
It happened in Connecticut, but at the cost of an accident with 7 fatalities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Turnpike#Connecticut_abolishes_tolls [wikipedia.org]
Re:FP? (Score:5, Informative)
I've never lived in a state where the tolls were retired and the booths torn down.
It happened in Connecticut, but at the cost of an accident with 7 fatalities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Turnpike#Connecticut_abolishes_tolls [wikipedia.org]
According to the Wiki page you linked to, the 7 fatality crash is why they abolished tolls.
Your post seems to indicate the opposite.
Re: (Score:3)
Eh? The crash was the impetus, but from TFL: "While the 1983 Stratford accident was cited as the main reason for abolishing tolls in Connecticut, the underlying reason was the fact that federal legislation at that time forbade states with toll roads from using federal funds for road projects."
Either way, the point is that there exists at least one state in which 'tolls were retired and the booths torn down.' It's not unprecedented.
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No tax ever stays in the advertised form.
Like all things the government does, making sure politicians keep to their tax promises requires attention and action from the voters in order to keep from growing. Unfortunately, we ignore it until someone tells us we can slash them. And it just happens to benefit them and not most people. Witness the Norquist/tea party insanity.
I admit, I don't pay attention to the budget until it goes into crisis mode: I find it very boring at most times and I'm easily distracted.
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Hashcash (Score:2)
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What Spammer sends anything from their own machines? When you're sending from a botnet of millions, what real effect will chewing up someone else's CPU cycles have?
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It affects everyone by a factor of 10, and does nothing to fix the problem. All it does is add a ton of implementation costs and new ways for the system to break.
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The only non-spammer people who would be disproportionately affected are people who like to send mail to dozens of addresses at a time. These people are already impacted by spam mitigation measures, and nobody seems to mind.
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Or botnets.
How will it stop spammers who aren't even sending the messages from their own computers anyway? All it will do is add $50 to the bill of anyone who gets infected (which is not, of itself, a bad thing, but it adds a whole new level of complexity, collection and appeal problems) and the original spammers will not pay a penny.
And all that will happens is that email will move offshore. Will you tax per email received or sent? Sent from US only? Sent through non-US servers from a US computer with
Re:FP? (Score:5, Insightful)
All it will do is add $50 to the bill of anyone who gets infected (which is not, of itself, a bad thing...)
Oh, yes it is - it's an example of victim blaming, [wikipedia.org] and it is a very, very bad thing.
Not that I disagree with the concept that folks need to be 'incentivized' in order to do things they should be doing anyway, but I don't believe punishing people for being attacked is the right way to go about it.
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If people are leaving their car keys in their cars, and there have been a rash of incidents where cars were stolen (keys already being in them) and used to commit various crimes and hit/ runs, then people who continue to leave their keys in their cars are absolutely part of the problem.
Victim blaming is incorrect if it tries to assign all blame to a victim, but there are many cases where the victim made poor choices which directly contributed to whatever has happened to them. You cant just pretend we live
Re:FP? (Score:5, Interesting)
No-one's explained -why would I want to fund the post office?
I just get spam and bills and rubbish. If it cost loads for these clowns to post me rubbish perhaps it would dissuade them and they'd have to actually provide value. The post office should be helping me by preventing it; instead they've stated they need all the spam to survive. Well, I'd rather they not survive.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the ISP with google, you fail to remember that everyone with a network connection already pays for this access to their ISP.
Also, no one ever sends spam from their own computer, what do you think all the hacked windows botnets are used for? This would just make innocent people get smallish extra charges added to their normal ISP bill, and won't cost anything to the senders of spam.
Best case scenario if they managed to make this stupid idea into reality is that ordinary folks at home will pay more attention to computer security to make sure they won't get charged those extra dollars each month.
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Also, no one ever sends spam from their own computer, what do you think all the hacked windows botnets are used for? This would just make innocent people get smallish extra charges added to their normal ISP bill, and won't cost anything to the senders of spam.
People who put insecure computers on the global network are not innocent. They're negligent. You want to really do something about that problem, start fining them.
If I put a big truck on the highway and I don't secure my cargo, I get to pay for any damage it does. Same principle. You are responsible for your property and any damage it causes on a shared, public resource.
I'm sure they can make a convincing puppy-eyes at you. So what? Stop excusing them. The damage they facilitate is very real.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Funny)
>> "Good idea; I wish there were a way to implement it."
Your time would be better spent trying to save the Buggy Whip industry. They haven't been doing so well since the arrival of the horseless carriage.
You do have a Buggy Whip in your car, yes? If not, you're part of the problem.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Funny)
You do have a Buggy Whip in your car, yes?
Well sure! How else are we supposed to fend off the street urchins?
Re: (Score:3)
The buggy whip industry died (and is used as a common example because it died) as a result of something better that completely and utterly replaced the horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately, its a bad example to use because often, especially in debates here on Slashdot, the industry being compared has not been replaced either in whole or in part.
I'm not defending the point of the article, but email has only replaced a small part of the packet mail delivery industry - I can't send a physical item through emai
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The buggy whip industry died (and is used as a common example because it died) as a result of something better that completely and utterly replaced the horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately, its a bad example to use because often, especially in debates here on Slashdot, the industry being compared has not been replaced either in whole or in part.
New technology almost never wipes out the old. We still have horse carriages in downtown Montreal. There are still practical reasons to ride a horse: we have cops that do.
We will still have old school mail as well as old school radio in 20 years. It won't go away. It just becomes less economically important.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
If people really find the postal system so useful they should be willing to pay more for it. This is a solution in search of a problem.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have to agree. What we really need to do shift from an address based physical mail to a person based official national email program. Everyone would be given a official email and CAC card. The CAC would be necessary for log in and document signing. The emails would be part of a publicly searchable contact directory. A small artificial cost would be applied to the sender to avoid abuse from advertising/SPAM agencies. All official government correspondence would be sent and received through said email program. Any document signed with the CAC would be seen as legally strong as a physical document signed by a handwritten signature. All libraries would be fitted with document scanners, computers, and CAC readers for those that do not have said equipment at home. Ideally, all government paper forms would be converted to digital forms. All correspondence or notifications could optionally be freely forward to your personal email so that you know when to check your government email.
As far as the transport of non-message objects goes, we could either have a post office that delivers mail only a couple times a week or simply go completely private (UPS, Fedex, etc.).
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Informative)
The USPS isn't losing money, their budgetary problems stem from Congress, who mandated that they fund their entire pension system 75 years into the future. Nobody else is under those constraints. Without that artificial baggage, they make a profit every year.
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You aren't, by chance a Chicago alderman or a California house member are you? That's what they've been doing for a long time and in case you haven't noticed, that hasn't worked out very well. Of course, it's still ongoing and things could change but their budgets are fucked. And they are fucked specifically because of pensions.
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Lowering costs is actually exactly what they're trying and need to do, the problem is not the reduced mail volume, the problem is the Post office's obligation to up until recently deliver mail on Saturdays, and they've also got a raw deal on health insurance, all while not being as profitable in the past. This is a classic case of bureaucracy failing.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The Post office managed to have two deliveries a day and one on Saturday for the longest time, profitably. It's not what's killing them.
Having become seriously top-heavy and over-regulated by bean counters who need to see justifications for all expenses (at costs higher than the expenses) is part of the problem. The bulk e-mail agreements and deals like UPS dropping off packages at the post office and having them deliver it for a pittance is what's killing them.
I.e. increased commercialization.
Mail is a utility, and needs to be treated as such. They can't fulfil their obligation to deliver mail if they are also to compete on packages, bulk delivery, and express.
They need to go back to what they were, and the free market evangelists need to keep their hands in their pockets where utilities are concerned. They can be profitable, but not on a free market.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Most mail needs to go into a "we'll deliver it when most cost effective; max of 14 days". Just build up the mail to a certain area until it gets "full", then deliver it. Some areas would only have deliveries once a week. Others would be every day. You can then have a real "first class" mail that would be delivered more often.
Basically, introduce a "second class" mail. And price the first class MUCH higher.
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That's what they had before.
There's a reason why your stamps say "first class".
What happened is that they got rid of second class mail. And instead introduced bulk mail for companies. A bad trade, if you ask me.
I also miss air mail with its rice paper, cross-written to save weight.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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I find it interesting that one of the "regulations gutting the USPS" is that it is being required to fund its pension plan with today's dollars.
My financial advisers tell me to put money into my 401k or IRA now. Pre-tax income, in a fund that generally keeps up with inflation. ... mostly.
Ok, sounds fine. But what if you were required by law to put in enough money -today- to be able to fully fund the next 80 years of your life?
The USPS is the victim of Congressmen who want to gut it, so they inserted a clause in a bill to ensure that the USPS funds the pensions today of future workers who are not yet born. No other business would have to put up with that.
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Is it really suffering, because of the internet there is access to more suppliers than ever before. Where you might have gone to a local store and bought what they had that was close to what you actually wanted now you get what you want and at some point it gets shipped to you.
If anything the internet is helping support the postal service through increased long distance trading. Post Offices do suffer somewhat since their role is increasingly marginal, however they could be revived if redefined and they ac
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no, that comparison really isnt relevant here.
you have to step back and ask what, ultimately, is the purpose of the Postal Service?
Answer: To faciliate communication between peoples.
Before the postal service letter writing was rather risky. You pay some random person to deliver a message...never knowing whether he would actually do so. He may keep the money and toss it in the trash. he may read it himself. He may deliver it to wrong person. Etc etc.
The postal service eliminated all of that uncertainty, and
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
to add to myself:
As interpreted and implemented "USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality."
And "primarily to facilitate interstate communication"
Can you think of a better way to justify creating universal internet access with a minimum acceptable quality of service?
I think it's a damned good way to go about it.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Informative)
in fact, to further add to myself: the post office owned and operated the first telegraph lines. so there is precedent.
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Good grief! And how exactly is it that the post office is due ANY funds from an email someone sends??? If they want more funds they should EARN it like the rest of us have to, not steal it from someone else that has earned it. If they're not making enough to keep things going then they should do like any other business and manage their costs and set prices appropriately.
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Horrible idea.
A lot of spam is done via spambots. So how do you ding the bill against the actual spammer (the people controlling the spambots) rather than the individuals who have the infected PCs and are sending spam unaware? There's nothing right or just in sending the innocent a bill for acts they did not consciously perform.
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"Basically, emails do have a cost" ... none of which is borne by government, so imposed tax money that goes to it merely serves to punish rather than pay for the cost.
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Or you could get a bill monthly from your ISP or something. They would just be monitoring emails sent from your IP. Of course, that wouldn't work for webmail in which just a browser session, and not the email itself, is sent to you.
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And our tax dollars already go towards the up keep of the internet's infrastructure.
Exactly. It would be useful (though probably impossible) if the small cost associated with each email were charged to the sender instead of picked up by everyone. If you got 1000 emails for a penny most people would spend very little each year, but the scams and spams that work if 1 in 100,000 people spend £20 would no longer be viable.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
This could be even better if our smtp standard could be enhanced with a 'you are not white listed, send via usps relay' error message. This way out going email could function as it currently does for users and admins could set their own cost budgeting policies.
economics lecture [Re:Good idea] (Score:5, Insightful)
And our tax dollars already go towards the up keep of the internet's infrastructure.
Ah, I love slashdot, where people simultaneously advocate anarchy, libertarianism, and socialism.
Yes, that's correct: we pay for the infrastructure with tax dollars (which would be socialism). Also, each person who pays for their connection also pays their ISP (which would be capitalism). This is true. So?
OK, here's the introduction to economics lecture. As a general rule, economic systems run more efficiently when people pay for the resources that they use, and run inefficiently when other people pay for resources that somebody else uses. Just a general rule to keep in mind.
Indeed, economic systems do not always run on this model (no, not even in ideal free markets). One example is the "all you can eat buffet." People don't pay proportionally to how much food they, primarily because the cost of the food itself is actually only a small portion of the total cost, and detailed accounting for the food eaten costs more than the trivial economic benefit gained. Yes, you can argue that e-mail is similar to that: the incremental cost of an e-mail (economists would say "marginal cost") is small compared to the cost of just keeping the network alive (however, email by nature goes through a series of computers between the sender and the recipient; so accounting would be less expensive than paying human waiter writing down orders on a pad.)
But the "all you can take" model relies on the implicit assumption that individual consumers do have a limit. If a semitrailer backs up to the all-you-can-take buffet, loads everything on the buffet into the trailer, and says to the cook "just keep it coming," the model will fail.
Like most of economics, then, there isn't always one price structure that works for all situations. There's always a trade-off of cost against benefit.
However, the knee-jerk reaction "put a cost on email! How dare anybody suggest such a thing!" seems a bit extreme. There are advantages in people paying for the resources that they use. There are also problems (which in economics, translates to "costs").
So, thanks for all the criticism, but I'll stick by what I wrote originally:
Good idea. Only problem: how could we implement it?
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Also would you charge only between AS to AS or would you tax companies sending email between offices (ie replacing post services)
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Both my ISP and my hosting company are effectively paid for by data volume and amortized hardware cost, so I pay for what I use online.
I don't use the post office, so I don't want to pay for them, through any form of tax.
So what exactly is your point?
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Could be the hundreds of millions that were given to telecoms in the 90s to build the infrastructure, our nation's intarwab backbone, which they certainly did yeeeupp.
Could also be the markets that have legislated monopolies for some of the companies, which is as good as handing them tax dollars.
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And our tax dollars already go towards the up keep of the internet's infrastructure.
I'm sorry, but this is so incorrect that it isn't funny. The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when NSFNET was decommissioned. Since then, what you know as "The Internet" in the U.S. has been carried on private equipment and circuits. The exception is the U.S. government's own infrastructure, and they're just like any other ISP, carrying traffic for their own departments and agencies.
And you know what would help even more? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about not forcing the postal service to keep 75 years' worth of back-funding for pensions?
-uso.
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How about converting everyone to 401k retirement plans, like he rest of us.
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Then suck it up and FULLY fund the pensions and don't depend on a government bail out when they fail to fund it fully.
We, the taxpayers, are tired of EVERY federal agency offering large pensions that we don't get, that get bailed out every time there is a shortfall forcing OUR retirement to reduce because of corrupt officials. We are not your personal pocketbook to decide how much of our money we should be allowed to keep.
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You sound like you have no understanding of accounting, nor of human life-spans. Why 75 years?
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Because that's forcing the government to invest in private institutions
You mean like...G.M.?
Besides, the taxpayer will take it in the ass regardless. 401k plans are better than us being on the hook to pay some guy his full salary and benefits after he's retired.
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Yes, I do mean like G.M. That was unprecedented, and I'm pretty sure many people believe there were better alternatives to stock purchase.
Cute idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if he did understand... (Score:5, Funny)
__
OMG, the post office is closing? (Score:3)
where else will i go to meet and talk to people i know for an hour or two at a time? its like a town meeting square where people go for hours just to stand around
Berkeley City Council (Score:5, Interesting)
Berkeley is a college town, so a large block of voters are students with no long term interest in the community. So a lot of kooks get elected.
Re:Berkeley City Council (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be true of any November ballots, if students even vote in large enough numbers. June ballots are not affected since students are out of town. The kooks are voted in because the town is full of kooks. A lot of people have settled in and taken root.
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The kooks are voted in because the town is full of kooks.
Well, then a kook tax would be appropriate. Rephrasing his proposal:
"There should be something like a kook tax. I mean a kook tax could be a cent per gigakook and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year."
Haven't needed this in awhile... (Score:5, Informative)
Dear nitwit,
Your post advocates a
( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(X) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
(X) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
Uh, no. Microsoft actually wanted [archive.org] to do this ten years ago.
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Well played.
I too have not seen that in a while. It is really quite amazing how good that form is at answering every proposed solution I've ever seen.
Re:Haven't needed this in awhile... (Score:4, Informative)
It's just a bunch of statements with no actual argument behind them.
No, it isn't even slightly. Every point has been rehashed again and again and again on usenet and then again and again and again on forums. That's why this form was invented, to neatly summarize every sane argument about anti-spam systems ever made, and it does a very good job. Spend 2 minutes thinking and you can see how the checkboxes expand. Look, in order:
Mailing lists and other legitamite users will be affected. Now, mailing list operators will become laiable for large tax bills. This will adversely affect a lot of open source projects and other things, no doubt.
So, how do you propose to find the email senders and collect money? That's very non trivial (see later).
How will you get the users of email to all adopt the system? For it to work, the entire system has to be switched worldwide overnight, otherwise people won't be able to receive emails.
You think microsoft will implement that? If they don't who else will use the system? How much use will it be if you can't send an email to an Exchange user.
Can you afford not to receive emails from abroad and thereby alienate those customers? Or, will you not tax emails from abroad?
So what central controlling authority which does not exist is going to (a) scan every email to check for taxes or (b) enforce non-receipt of emails for which tax isn't paid. Since there's no global authority, how will this work?
The trouble is if you don't tax users from abroad then open relays in other countries will be used to send spam. If they are taxed, how on earth do you propose to get the entire world to switch to this new system overnight?
Asshats will find ways to sneak spam in anyway and leave some poor sap picking up the bill.
There is no worldwide jusisdiction. How will the tax be implemented?
Do you think the entire population will accept this new tax, or vote for hte guy who promises to repeal it?
The armies of worm-ridden boxes will keep sending SPAM. Sure the users will foot the bill (then at least temporarily fix their box) but it will still be a game of whack-a-mole with no decrease in spam.
Spam is profitable, so spammers will spend lots of money to figure out ways of sending spam. Just look at how much money is invsted in botnets now. If soverign governments cannot secure their networks from botnest, what hope do you think everyone else has?
The person who suggested this is technically illiterate because he has failed to account for any of the problems.
Philosophically, I feel sending mail should be free. It's just regular peer-to-peer internet communication like everything else, none of which is taxed. And tacing it would be hard. First: define email unambiguously.
This is indeed a feelgood measure because it sounds nice but will not address the problem (see above).
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, Gordon. The truth hurts some time. If this idiotic suggestion didn't make it clear that you have no clue how things work, this post certainly does.
Stick to taking your kickbacks, Councilman. Leave the technical stuff to the professionals.
Re: (Score:2)
If the email doesn't have a legal code showing it paid taxes, it gets automatically rejected and sent back to the sender
Ah, yes, because the entire legitimate email-using world would instantly convert to using a tax suggested by a Berkeley council member. Im sure noone REALLY needs those emails from their UK business partners.
Re:Haven't needed this in awhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't normally reply to an AC, but it's been modded up.
The list above is moronic. It is wrong for the following reasons:
No, it was carefully honed through the 90's and I've yet to see a time since about 1998 where any anti spam measure could not be answered by checking a box.
1) Mailing list etc.: Screw them.
Okey dokey. Well, I do, and people sign up to my mailing lists. I'm also on a number of tech mailing lists. They work very well and removing them would hamper much online activity.
2) Collecting money: If the email doesn't have a legal code showing it paid taxes, it gets automatically rejected and sent back to the sender
And how's that supposed to work? Again, try reading the list: there is no central controlling authority. Let me repeat since you are hearing impaired:
THERE IS NO CENTRAL CONTROLLING AUTHORITY.
So, how do you prove it? How will it work internationally? Answer: it won't.
3) I am a user of email and I not only will put up with it, I WANT it.
Yep you, and a few other people worldwide. Noone else will bother.
4) Microsoft has no power or right to stop it.
Microsoft have immense power due to their size. If Microsoft don't implement it, then it won't happen. If your new email system can't contact people on Outlook/Exchange server, then no one will ever use it.
5) Why do you think people can't spend 1 cent per hundred email? But anyway, it is not our legal responsibility to make life easy for the incompetent. See answer #1 above. Regulations are a part of business. If you can't comply, then you don't deserve to run the business., or get a job. But honestly, this w
Because there's no conceivable mechanism whereby charging would work.
6) We don't need a central authority for emails, we can do it with codes. Pay a tax, get a code number. Email software rejects those without the code.
So, your solution not requiring a central authority is to have a central code authority. Right.
And again, who is going to make veryone worldwide make the switch? Which authority will force that? Or, do you want to go offline to everyone outside your country.
7) Open relays in foreign countries are fine, it doesn't affect those that use the code rejection system
So foriegn people have to pay a tax to your country (USA?) in order to send them emails? Why would any foreign company adopt that?
8) Screw the Asshats - and send them to jail for tax crimes
OK, how do you catch them?
9)Armies of virus infected window boxes might actually get cleaned up if they were costing the idiots money by spamming
Indeed they might. But an awful lot of people (voters) are going to get very upset at this legislative solution...
10) We are reducing the profitability of spammers.
lol. Let me repeat that: lol.
11) Technically illiterate politicians are still smarter than YOU and came up with this solution
So, politicians smarter than me came up with a solution which is completely unworkable. That's very nice.
12) Saying something should should be free, it doesn't make it so. In fact, it isn't free - it costs the ISPs money every time you send an email, just such a small amount (electricity, electronic upkeep), that they don't charge for it. They should. The fact you don't know this represents your own foolishness.
It's a philosophical point: the ISPs already charge for data, so that cost is covered. Beyond that, why should some particular peer-to-peer communication be taxed over any other?
13) This isn't a feel good measure, it actually solves the problem.
Except it requires (accoriding to you) a server somewhere which dishes out tax codes.
Your post advocates a (X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work.
13) This isn't a feel good measure, it actually s
Re: (Score:2)
Im actually going to explain why youre so wrong, just in case you are legitimately ignorant (rather than just trolling):
1) People who do not sign onto the system (mailing list providers) will undermine the system. The gov't agency I am with has internal DLs that include email addresses that belong to private contractors; is that illigitimate?
2) This would require everyone to come into full compliance with this tax suggested by a CA council member, otherwise you block loads of legit email.
3) Most users will
Maybe, instead... (Score:2)
The city councillor can impose a liquorice tax on all emails sent within his jurisdiction. For every 1 trillion emails sent, a person must place one stick of liquorice on the councillors desk.
That makes about as much sense as what the councillor is proposing.
Just to be clear, I don't like liquorice all that much.
Let's use a gas tax to fund horse and buggies (Score:2, Funny)
After all, who are we to say that buggy whip manufacturers are any less deserving of our support?
Re: (Score:2)
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Then there is the issue of closing post offices. There should be some standard, such as no post office for less than 5,000 people. For instance, evidently the people of Derby Connecticticut (3,000 people) are upset that their post office is going to close even though there is another a half mile away. Evidently the US taxpayer is expected to cover maintenance costs for the building. I know how they feel. My historic post office might close, which serves way over 20,000 people, although there are satellite kiosks in other areas, but the reality is that it is sitting on a very valuable piece of property and does not need to be that big. I kind of hope it does not close, but will understand if it does.
On the other hand, they're planning to close the Long Beach sorting center, which is pretty much the only center in Southern California that can accept Express Mail as late as 9:00pm and still deliver it to California the next day (something even FedEx and UPS don't do.) Yet, the "bulk mail acceptance facility" in Anaheim isn't in any danger, despite closing at 5:00pm.
Finaly some who does his job (Score:2)
WTF?! Seriously, why are we paying this idiots for?
This idea is so stupid it doesn't even need a technical explanation why it will fail to produce anything good.
After I lick the stamp, (Score:2, Interesting)
Do I put the stamp on my monitor or insert it into my computer's cup holder?
If only they'd thought of this ... (Score:5, Funny)
For only a few dollars extra per car, all the blacksmiths would still be in business.
Better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we levy a $10,000 "tax" for politicians that introduce stupid legislation.
Hot air idea (Score:3)
There is enough money around to fix all problems, it's not used properly by the people controlling it.
Let it die. Seriously. (Score:3)
I have no objection to paying $4.99 to FedEx for the once or twice each year I actually send something in a #10 envelope... As long as it means the literally hundreds useless catalogs (plus credit card and life insurance offers, plus political fliers in even-numbered years) I get per year need to do the same - By which I mean, hopefully that would effectively end unsolicited commercial/charitable/political mail.
Re: (Score:3)
An unfunded pension liability merely externalizes the risk of default - Company goes under, bam, you have tens of thousands of retirees and near-retirees on welfare until the mercy of death gives them back the dignity they worked fair 'n square for. Forcing a company (including the post office) to fully fund their pension system does not count as frivolo
Mission creep (Score:2)
The Postal Service was sort of a socialist effort to raise up the American people and equalize access to information and commerce.
The USPS is primarily a taxpayer subsidy of a few dubious and onerous types of predatory businesses. (Raise the price of junk-mailing, anyone?)
The Berkeley city council probably was set up to regulate local social intercourse and promote local business interests,
as they say, the rest is history.
Very tiny tax? (Score:2)
"Very tiny tax"? That's how they all start off. Just pay us a little more. It's not much, so you shouldn't complain. And then it becomes a little more. And a little more. And a little more, until suddenly you find more than a quarter of your annual income is going to fund all kinds of crap you never wanted in the first place.
No, no, no ... (Score:3)
Here's a better idea: deregulate the mail (Score:3)
Re:Here's a better idea: deregulate the mail (Score:4, Insightful)
FedEx uses the post office for many local deliveries. Commercial carriers will not deliver everywhere. This is a national infrastructure issue.
Re: (Score:3)
Read this. Seriously. It answers all your questions.
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/post-office-business-trouble-0213?page=all [esquire.com]
Like this little nugget:
Over the past five years, FedEx and UPS have spent a combined $100 million lobbying Congress. Because neither company has a delivery network nearly as sprawling as [the USPS], they contract with the postal service to deliver the "final mile" of much of their cargo. For instance, more than 21 percent of all FedEx deliveries are dropped off by a postal carrier. Meanwhile, millions of postal-service letters hitch rides on FedEx flights every day, for which the company gets paid $1 billion a year. FedEx and UPS don't want the postal service to go out of business but to remain contained, out of the way...
> Fedex and UPS have perfected delivery of packages so why not
> the mail? I'm not sure what magic the USPS possesses that private
> industry couldn't do better anyway
Fact: you have it exactly backwards. The system that UPS and FedEx have "perfected" is... TO USE THE USPS! Can you believe that? A fucking FIFTH of all FedEx deliveries are actually done
Uhmmm... NO (Score:2)
Stop making the PO pre-fund pensions forpractically hundreds of years in advance, and get rid of the pension plan and go to 401ks like most of the people have instead and the PO will be fine. Don't try slapping another tax on people to support the bad business decisions the US Congress forced on the PO.
Road tax can reduce drive-by shootings (Score:3)
It might work, but there may be a bit of collateral damage.
Contact address (Score:2)
Here is the email address of Berkeley City Councilman Gordon Wozniak
gwozniak@cityofberkeley.info
You know what to do.
No new taxes -- you clowns waste the money. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think our problem is a lack of revenue; it's bad spending.
First, government is massively inefficient at every level thanks to the "government job" mentality and the tendency to over-hire bureaucrats.
Second, many government programs are pure pork barrel designed to appease certain special interest groups or make cronies rich.
Finally, government is a self-justifying agenda. In order to justify its cost, it needs to constant invent new mission creep in order to give a "legitimate" need for increased an
Councilman, know about the unfair USPS obligation? (Score:2)
From the Huffington Post [huffingtonpost.com]
Flat Tax (Score:2)
Seriously? (Score:3)
First off, this fellow in a city council has no responsibility for the funding of the USPS.
Second, he has no ability to tax anyone outside his city - does he propose that Berkley alone fund the USPS?
Third, the issue with USPS solvency is, for the most part, inflicted upon the USPS by Congress, which has decided that since the USPS was profitable in 2006, that it should fully-fund 75 years of pension obligations by the end of 2016. This has resulted in over-funding the pension fund beyond any reasonable requirement by any conventional funding formula, and if you look closely, the losses the USPS reported these last few years is only slightly more than the annual over-payment of the pension system.
This is like the tax on illegally obtained goods (Score:3)
Spammers already don't care about the law. Who in their right mind would think they would pay the tax? The lusers of the zombied computers will be ones stuck with the bill.
Re:yeah. (Score:5, Funny)
[x] It's a dumb idea
[x] Email doesn't work like that
[x] You're an idiot
Re: (Score:2)
So what this guy wants is to tax a service that the USPS doesn't provide, to help fund the USPS. That's fucking idiotic. Second, if you want to reduce the cost of the USPS, don't stop delivery on Saturday. Stop it on EVERY day of the week, except one. It's 2013 and nobody uses the USPS for anything that is time sensitive. The only thing I get in my mail is junk. I have a trash min literally at my door, just so I can reach out the door, get the mail, and directly dump it into the trash every day. Anything th
Re: (Score:2)
So, stop the mail service because YOU don't use it. Gotcha.
Re: (Score:2)
Digging a hole to get the dirt to fill another hole.
That can look remarkably successful as long as you concentrate on one hole at a time. I think its the way many politicians work.
Re: (Score:3)
Didn't Bill Gates suggest this a long while back?
Yes, he did. About 10 years ago, IIRC. It was a stupid idea back then, and it still is now (even more so).
Back then, spam was mostly sent from hit-and-run accounts and open email relays. (So the spammers would be difficult to track down.)
Nowadays, they use botnets. Infected users would get charged for the spam flow. Some of them might not even notice the extra costs on their ISP bill.