Pay per email spamming

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail - New York Times: "America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely."

While this may cut down on the frantic messages I get from South Africa offering millions in exchange for my account number, I don't see this as a spam reducing tactic. I think it's a get out of the junk mailbox free card for spammers that can cough up the dough. Nice, Yahoo! and AOL... how about using anti-spam filters to cut down on spam? Why don't you leave the internet caste system to the ISPs?