this article is quite horrible. (not your fault prom, CNN's). the scheme here is not that you'd actually be paying for email, but your computer would have to perform functions that for normal emailers would be a minor inconvenience, but for people who send millions of emails would cost them significantly in required extra computing power to send the same number of emails in a certain time. I'm still a bit sketch on the idea, but this doesn't look to be a scheme that would make Gates any money. (actually, his company would be one of the ones hurt, as they would have to spend extra $$ to send their emails) . This does make me wonder though. the cost may be prohibitive to small non-profits and such who send out lots of wanted email but who woudl never be able to afford the costs this system imposes, and speed is of the essence for many of these groups. Also, i'm pretty sure this would only increase incentives for virus writers/hackers and spammers to join forces, that way spammers can use our computers to do the computations rather than buying the equipment to do the computations. So, it may be this scheme will help regulate legitimate companies' use of email, but that the real bad spammers may just keep going as usual. maybe
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