CAN the warm glow of altruism defeat the cold selfishness of spammers? The project, developed by Yahoo Research, revives the idea of charging to send email, but with a twist. Users will buy “stamps” to attach to their emails, with the proceeds going to a charity that will be named on your posts (see “Charitable donations could deter email spammers”). But not everyone will want to receive emails from do-gooders, especially correspondents who may disagree with your choice of good cause. Let’s hope we don’t end up trading one kind of spam for another.
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