[10520] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
bill to insure flat rate Internet email pricing (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Sat Feb 26 05:35:27 1994
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 13:48:57 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: rciville@civicnet.org
Cc: welch@oar.net, love@essential.org, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Richard Civille's message of Fri, 25 Feb 1994 10:35:36 -0500 (EST) <Pine.3.07.9402251035.D297-b100000@cap.gwu.edu>
>From: Richard Civille <rciville@civicnet.org>
>This is probably incorrect. No such accounting detail is required for
>fourth class postage, and no one is bugging residential calls to make sure
>they are not used for business purposes. Internet domain name
>registration is all that would be needed.
What about shared domains (e.g. Compuserve, Prodigy, World)?
>For example, .edu designations
>would already be sufficient, and perhaps another designation, such as .npo
>for "non profit organization" could be considered.
I assume by "non-profit organization" you really mean tax-exempt?
Such as 501Cx. Would you include industrial trade organizations such
as the American Petrochemical Association (the IRS does)?
Also, since this sort of distinction includes specifically
organizations that live on the public largesse would you have any
problem with this allowing millions of free "please give" notes going
out constantly from Easter Seals, United Way, NOW, GreenPeace, Amnesty
International, etc etc etc?
Are individuals non-profit by your thinking? How about individuals
with a cause?
One nice thing about some metering is that it provides at least some
feedback as to what is rational and what is just plain crazy. I could
certainly see some big-name charitable org under this flat-rate scheme
hitting millions of mailboxes daily or at least weekly (perhaps under
guises like newsletters, reports on some kid we fed today and what a
great difference your contribution will make, emergency alerts on
environmental news, etc.) Is this a desireable result?
Something I notice now is that two here who think this is a pretty
good idea (James Love and Richard Civille) both seem to work for such
non-profit orgs.
Having myself worked for non-profits and helped manage their budgets
could there be any motivation here arising from the "sticker-shock" of
suddenly realizing that postage, even at bulk/non-profit rates, can
cost thousands of dollars per month for even simple little mailings?
Say it costs $0.14/letter, that's $14,000 in postage per 100K, easily
an activity that even a small non-profit may look at longingly.
Here's what I would counter-propose:
You take stats on real e-mail usage at real places. You make the first
one or two or even three standard deviations of everyone fall under
some flat-rate, and then meter thereafter. I'd have no problem with
that rate being adjusted for tax-exempts a la the current US Post
Office practices.
Why not?
>Why make this so complicated?
Cuz it is?
-Barry Shein
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