Spam costs and questions

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

A friend who's going to be speaking on one of the FTC panels next week
sent me a few questions about spam. Does anyone want to try their hand at
answering them? I'll forward along all responses I get.

	What are the costs to consumers of
	unsolicited e-mail?  I guess the time it
	takes to delete it might be one, hard
	drive space might be another.  I would
	like to know how to quantify it, and
	compare it with the cost of sending
	e-mail.

	If you banned commercial e-mail,
	wouldn't it just affect legitimate
	commercial transactions?  That is to say,
	wouldn't fly-by-night pyramid-scheme
	builders still be able to spam?  I would
	think that if they are so untraceable
	that it's hard to block their spam that
	it wouldn't really matter if it were
	simply made illegal.

-Declan