In the brave new world of lower access fees in exchange for spam, satisfied consumers would pay less for Internet service, claim UMC associate professor of journalism Clyde Bentley and doctoral student Anca Micu. ISPs would cover their discount costs with ad dollars from spammers, and advertisers would improve their marketing efficiency by sending spam only to consumers willing to accept it.

ISP or ISpam?

"Both the U.S. newspaper industry and the commercial broadcast industry are based on similar attitudes," Bentley told NewsFactor. "Newspapers charge readers just a small percentage of the cost of producing their product, collecting 80 percent or more of their revenue via advertising. Broadcasters provide 'free' content courtesy of the businesses that pay for commercials."

To support their idea, Bentley and Micu conducted a survey of 2,140 university community members divided into two groups -- students, ages 18 to 25, and non-students. Sixty three percent of students and 37 percent of non-students were willing to accept spam when coupled with lower Internet access fees.

Bentley and Micu also found that the higher the participants' Internet fee and the younger the participant, the more willing they were to accept spam for a discount.

"At issue for those who would make the Internet a viable mass medium is a new conundrum: Advertising is okay, but e-mail advertising is vile," Bentley said. "This research appears to give some hope for solving the riddle."

Spam Canned or Research Panned?

Any attempt to can spam is likely to raise the hackles of skeptics who are dyspeptic over the ever-growing barrage of penis-enlargement, breast-enhancement, and debt-reduction ads that can sneak past even the most vigilant e-mail filters.

"Unfortunately, the University of Missouri researchers are proposing a 'solution' that isn't new and won't work," said Babson College marketing and technology law professor Ross Petty. "There is no effective way to filter out unauthorized spam, so few advertisers will pay to be on this service, knowing that others will continue to spam for free."

"Bentley and Micu's proposal has been tried before as a business model," added John Mozena, cofounder and vice president of the 50,000-member Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. "There is nothing wrong with the idea, but it will do nothing to stop spam."

Spammers currently pay little or nothing to reach their targets, so "there's no incentive for them to incur an incremental cost-per-message when they're already successfully making money through sheer volume," Mozena told NewsFactor. "Legitimate advertisers may be interested in the UMC model, but they're not the ones who are generating spam." (continued...)

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