“You may opt-out of receiving communications from us… by not submitting your information” Hey, how generous! The “FreeCollegeSchollarships.net” website won’t send you spam if you don’t submit your information. If you do submit your information, how do you get off of the list? They do provide a way, but it only works after you’ve started receiving spam from them and they’ve sold your e-mail address to many others. Bah.

What we need is a system so that whenever you receive an e-mail, you know exactly who it came from. Most SPAM comes from forged addresses. If we modified the e-mail system so that you could not forge the recipient address, SPAM would deflate from a major problem to a minor one.

About two years ago, WalMart gave an ultimatum to its suppliers, “Start using RFID if you want to do business with us.” We need someone with a lot of influence to do the same with e-mail. Maybe if the US and EU worked together they could get it done. Oh, and final requirement – it needs to be an open standard, free for everyone to implement.