Spam - solutions and their problems

B. Curtis Eaton (), Ian MacDonald and Laura Meriluoto ()

No 2008-09, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Calgary

Abstract: We analyze three potential solutions to the spamn problem - sender pays pricing, receiver pays pricing and filtering - used alone or concurrently. We find that filters alone may exacerbate the spam problem if the spammer tries to evade them by sending multiple variants of the message to each consumer. Sender pays and receiver pays prices can be effective on their own or with filtering in reducing or eliminating spam. When filtering is used in conjunction with either price the magnitude of the spam-eliminating price is unambiguously reduced for every level of filter effectiveness.

Keywords: spam; filtering; email; receiver pays pricing; sender pays pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L96 L10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-02-07, Revised 2008-02-07
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Working Paper: Spam - solutions and their problems (2008)
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