You know, it wouldn't be THAT difficult to stop the vast majority of spam on the internet these days. Some folks have denigrated my idea of small payments to send spam, but it would work.

This isn't that difficult. SMTP could be enhanced with an optional protocol for supporting a small payment system. Over the course of the next several years, mail servers would be enhanced to support the new protocol. Then it's just a matter of turning it on.

At its simplest form, my mail server would only accept mail from other mail servers that enforced the payment system. To send me a piece of mail that would land in my in basket, the remote server would agree to pay my server some small amount, like a penny. The protocol would allow me to specify criteria that would waive the fee.

Typical waivers would be for:

-Mail originating from any .gov or .edu domain.
-Mail originating from any domain that I may specify (such as my employer)
-Mail that is certified as coming from anyone in my address book
-Mail that went through a particular email list server to which I've subscribed

As part of this process, we could require people register for a security certificate (from an organization such as Thawte) that allows them to digitally sign their email. If you don't register a certificate, then my mailer could be configured to not trust you -- after all, the email that says its from you might not really be from you. It's easy to spoof without digital signing. You could still send me mail, but it'll cost you a penny for delivery.

All this isn't necessarily something you can just snap your fingers and implement. The people who write mail servers could implement the features relatively easily. There really isn't that much complexity here. Then, over time, the changes would roll out into the real world.

And what if someone wants to send me mail, but his ISP hasn't upgraded mail server technologies? Well, I say "too bad, so sad. You'll just have to call me on the phone instead." What if you're not willing to pay the penny? Well then, it must not be very important to you. You could, after all, ask me to make sure you're on my waiver list.

There is room for abuse. Someone could push out a virus that causes thousands of PCs to automatically send mail back to him, collecting those pennies. Well, I guess there are two answers to that:

1. Folks should have anti-virus software
2. ISPs could add mail throttling and other features designed to protect their customers

An ISP doesn't have to allow you to send thousands of emails. If you're doing that, you're spamming. If you intend to send that many, then you should ask your ISP to increase your limit. And if you don't like the fact that your machine was hijacked by a virus, then maybe you shouldn't have let it get infected.

The status quo doesn't need to continue. This solution isn't rocket science. Smart people could make it work if they would just stop trying to sabotage the idea.