

Ask YC:  Get paid to read your email?  Your attention is worth something right? - amichail

The idea is not to get rid of traditional spam (spam filters already work well), but rather, to have an auction for your attention from email senders just as there is an auction for your attention from advertisers.
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xirium
A variation of this has been proposed before. However, it wasn't an auction.
The idea was that people could include a micro-payment with their message. If
their payment is below your threshold then the message would be bounced. If
the payment is above your threshold then it is delivered to you. If you like
the message then you refund the payment. If the message is spam then you keep
the payment.

This system makes most spam uneconomic and financially compensates users for
the remainder. It can be combined with whitelisting and it doesn't preclude
legacy inputs.

It is certainly better than Microsoft's digital stamp which earns you nothing
and Microsoft one cent for each of your messages - legitimate or not.

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chandrab
BoxBe is a startup you should look at...they started with this idea, but
according to a few friends of mine that use it no one has ever bothered to pay
them for their attention. As a revenue generating business model, it seems
thats spammers don't pay!

btw - Goodmail has signed up ISP customers to get mailers to pay a couple of
cents per message to "guarantee" the delivery of the message. To me seems like
a protection racket of corp. customers by the ISP and Goodmail.

