Re: I'm from the government, and I'm here to control your email....

[Xcott Craver <caj@math.niu.edu>]

On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, Trei, Peter wrote:

> Once everyone has an government registered email address, it
> will be a simple matter to forbid the use of uncontrolled email
> addresses (for either sending or receiving) at least within the 
> US. It's to be expected that government agencies will refuse to
> send to any other address.

	I don't know how easy this would be.  The Govt would be going
	up against some pretty heavy businesses if they wanted to 
	eliminate all but their own email addresses.  I can see them
	pushing a standard by only acknowledgeing "postal" addresses,
	and probably pushing some kind of cost, since for obvious 
	reasons, these email addresses would have to be managed by
	the govts own servers.

	I predict that the idea will go through, the USPS will 
	consider charging people based on the space their incoming
	mail takes up, but change to a charge on outgoing mail after
	everyone raises a stink.  

	Then, some clever person will push a bill through congress
	forcing all commercial email to be sent from a postal email
	address, forcing spammers to pay a bulk rate and provide
	both a physical and internet return address.

							-Caj