OneAndOneIs2

Well, every pleb in the geeky-tabloid world seems to be so enthralled by "Web 2.0" that I thought I'd chip in with an important counterpart: Email 2.0

There's been politicians agonizing over all these mails being sent without it generating them any tax money. And post offices all over the world complaining about the lack of stamps needed for electronic mail. Both have proposed that money be charged for emails.

Of course, it breaks down when you've got software that was created without pay-per-mail functionality built in, and developers with no interest in adding it.

That's what email 2.0 fixes - because people have utterly overlooked the positive aspect of email costing money!

Spam! Bane of mailboxes everywhere, because it's virtually free to send!

Imagine a world that's switched to Email 2.0 - a world where every email costs money. Nothing major - a penny or two per mail, no more.

Now, before you start complaining about this putting an end to mailing lists & the like, let me reassure you: It won't. The charge for the mail, you see, is refundable.

It works like this: You send an Email 2.0. Your ISP notes the email leaving your computer, and puts a 1p debit in your account.

The addressee receives the mail. If they agree that this is a worthwhile email, they click the 'Good' button. Or, if you're in their email 2.0 whitelist, the mail is deemed automatically 'good' without intervention.

As soon as they mark your email 2.0 'good', a response is returned to your ISP, which removes the 1p debit and restores your balance to zero.

If they forget, or just don't bother, to mark your email 2.0 as 'good', you're only out a penny - no big deal.

So overall, email 2.0 costs you little or no more than current email.

But then there's spammers. A spammer who sends out millions of spams a day, and doesn't get everybody marking his mail as 'good' is a spammer who's got a lot of money to suddenly cough up. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, in fact.

Farewell to 'direct' spamming. But there's still the zombie PCs - malware ridden PCs that send out email for the spammer - and insecure networks that spammers can exploit.

Right now, these idiots go unpunished - "My PC's a bit slow, I think it's got malware. But it only affects me, and I can't be bothered to disinfect it. So never mind." they say, as another hundred emails selling viagra leave their PCs. . .

Well, not with Email 2.0! Their apathy towards security will vanish at near-lightspeed when they get a bill for thousands of dollars for all the spam mails that have come from their PC or network.

With the introduction of Email 2.0, spam ceases to exist, and the idiots who let their computers get infected because they can't be bothered to learn the simple steps to avoid doing so get penalized for it.

Of course, there are so many technical and legal problems with Email 2.0 that you don't need me to list them: The beurocracy; the loopholes; the sheer technical impossibility.

So many good ideas have to be abandoned purely because they just won't work.

But think about it, next time you open your email to delete your dozens of spams: Picture a world where every bastard spammer and every infuriating clueless PC owner gets hit with huge fines for their sins.

Doesn't it give you a warm glow? :o)

Why, yes, I did have rather a lot of spam in my filter today. What makes you ask?