People involved with the Web have been whispering about e-mail postage -- also known as "sender pays" -- for a decade, but it resurfaced last month when Mr. Gates broached the topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The belief is that e-postage would deter rampant spammers; a 1-cent levy on each e-mail, for example, would be ruinous for companies that send out millions of unsolicited ads every day with the hope that a handful of people will respond. Mr. Gates thinks spammers should be punished retroactively, in a transaction known as a "charge-back." When a person receives a piece of mail that they deem as spam, they press a designated button and the sender is charged a fee for that message. Observers agree that combatting spam is a noble and worthy endeavour but feel that the notion of e-postage is fraught with logistical and financial problems.
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