Gates of Hell…The E-Mail Tax

If there is a way Bill Gates can inhibit (as in "control") computing while extracting more money from you, he’s going to do it. Take the e-mail tax, for instance. Sure, it doesn’t bother Gates if he has to pay a penney an e-mail. He won’t miss the money. As long as it solves the problem of spam, something his own products have not been very adept at handling, then he’s happy. He has no problem with the chilling effect such a move would have on the Internet’s ability to foster Free Speech. I do. And I’m here to tell you that I would not only strenuously object to such a move on both economic and political grounds, but I have to ask why it is that pundits such as Gates seem to forget that I’m ALREADY paying to support the Net. I agree it’s not right that the fees I pay my ISP and the fees I pay my web hosting service (where my mail servers are) wind up supporting the spammers. They have already proven they have no issue with taking from others or with walking a thin line of what’s legal and what’s not and sometimes crossing it, all in order to make a sale. That said, I believe there has to be other ways to ensure that these folks stop this abusive practice. Taxing the people who are victims of the problem is NOT it. Going after the people who are doing this and making sure they can’t use the resources of others to accomplish it are.