News and views from a software developer's perspective
Friday, January 24, 2003I had been thinking that it's only the moves of the big players -- AOL, MSN, Microsoft, and perhaps a few others -- that really matter in the spam war. Now, I'm having second thoughts about that. Spammers will do whatever it takes to get past any anti-spam technology set up by the big players. They feel they have a right to get past those road blocks. However, a filter set up by an individual to block spam is probably an indication that he isn't going to be persuaded to respond to the spam messages. Will spammers fight so hard to get past those individual's filters? I guess that depends on their goal. If there goal is just to get past filters, then they will do whatever it takes. If their goal is to sell products or services, then can they really be successful by harrassing those they are trying to sell to?
If we accept this argument -- that spammers won't try so hard to get past individuals' filters, but they will try extremely hard to get past ISPs filters -- then we ought to hope that MSN, AOL, and other ISPs don't ever build too sophisticated filters, because that would lead to extremely sophisticated spam. Yes, put all the anti-spam techology into client software, like Outlook Express. Make it anti-spam technology that learns, based on individuals' email usage.
Filters that "learn", and thus become unique to each individual, would be effective, even if implemented at an ISP's servers instead of at the subscriber's PC.
States Eye Online Services for Tax Bounty
Wow. What's most disturbing about this news story is that some of the states might be considering taxing downloadable products like software or other digital content. We heard the argument that tax revenue was being lost because consumers were buying from merchants on the web instead of brick-and-mortal merchants. That argument is a little easier to accept. But arguing for taxing online services and downloadable content is a BIG step. We all know that it's hard to sell digital content because of peer-to-peer networks. And, it's hard to sell subscriptions to content because many consumers are used to getting content for free. So, now the states will step in and make it even harder to succeed as an online business. Taxing is just an easy way out, but it's not always the smart thing to to. If you kill economic growth as a result of a tax policy, then you end up with less tax revenue.
Then, I wonder about the logistics of collecting the taxes. Sure, they want to simplify the procedure for the States. But what are we going to do when every little small country out there in the world insists that we collect their tax for them. And what about those Internet-based businesses that move to some remote part of the world where it would be difficult to police them. That would make competition difficult for their competitors that play by the states rules.