dmv wrote:
] He's definately not wrong. I'm not a kneejerk antigovernment
] type, but I think if the government is imposing incentives, it
] should probably come from the other way. To run a network
] connection, one should be force to assume the liabilities and
] problems of running one securely. How you fine people for
] failing to live up to the responsibilities can be sorted out
] in the private and public sectors, but I'm not sure why we
] should be offering initial discounts to do what you should be
] doing. If uplinks charged more for unsecured traffic,
] perhaps.

A couple of comments:

1. Going from an environment with no regulation to one in which there are carrots is easy. Moving to one in which their are sticks is not.

2. You don't have to comply with an incentive. You have to comply with a requirement. (Therefore it isn't really correct to say that incentives are "imposed." Requirements are imposed. Incentives are offered.) There are several reasons why it is not advisable to have the government institute national standards for network operation that are required by law. One size may not fit every network, and the government is even more apt to impose specific regulations that limit innovation or that serve special interests. I don't want Congress telling me what services I can run on my hosts.

3. Incentives help you balance costs. If something is a public good but its more expensive then its worth to a company, we can create incentive structures that help the company justify the costs. This works really well with polution reduction, where we have a market for pollutants that creates an economic incentive for plants to stay ahead of the curve by selling their unused emmission quota to other plants.

RE: How to Stop Spam