'Charging for email won't stop spam'

The idea of charging senders for each email they dispatch has long been discussed as a way to cut down on spam.

The debate over how effective this would be resurfaced recently after AOL announced a scheme whereby paid-for email would pass through its spam filters. The charge, though not yet finalised, would only be about half a penny per email but the hope is that would be enough to deter spammers who send out millions of messages.

However, a recent poll of silicon.com readers showed great pessimism in the ability of paid-for email schemes to reduce the number of junk email messages in our inboxes.

Roughly 80 per cent of the 451 readers polled said charging to send emails wouldn't stop spam. Of those, around two-thirds said it was a bad idea altogether while 12 per cent said it was better than nothing.

But not all were so pessimistic. An optimistic 15 per cent of silicon.com readers said paid-for email would stop spam, while the remaining five per cent admitted they weren't sure.