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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/28463
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| Title: | Using Uncensored Communication Channels to Divert Spam Traffic |
| Authors: | Chiao, Benjamin - University of Michigan
MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey - University of Michigan |
| Issue Date: | 2006 |
| Series/Report no.: | NET Institute Working Paper;06-20 |
| Abstract: | We offer a microeconomic model of the two-sided market for the dominant
form of spam: bulk, unsolicited, and commercial advertising email. We
adopt an incentive-centered design approach to develop a simple,
feasible improvement to the current email system using an uncensored
communication channel. Such a channel could be an email folder or
account, to which properly tagged commercial solicitations are routed.
We characterize the circumstances under which spammers would voluntarily
move much of their spam into the open channel, leaving the traditional
email channel dominated by person-to-person, non-spam mail. Our method
follows from observing that there is a real demand for unsolicited
commercial email, so that everyone can be made better off if a channel
is provided for spammers to meet spamdemanders. As a bonus, the absence
of filtering in an open channel restores to advertisers the incentive to
make messages truthful, rather than to disguise them to avoid filters.
We show that under certain conditions all email recipients are better
off when an open channel is introduced. Only recipients wanting spam
will use the open channel enjoying the less disguised messages, and for
all recipients the satisfaction associated with desirable mail received
increases, and dissatisfaction associated with both undesirable mail
received and desirable mail filtered out decreases. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/28463 |
| Appears in Collections: | NET Institute Working Papers Series
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