[Edit] Post removed

Oh, hell no!

Agreed...I'm sick of living in a 'democratic' land and having more and more things taken from me...when well the revolution begin? (and where do I sign??)

What a bunch of crap............i hope it doesn't happen!

who cares? when it comes out, just don't use it. We still have the free e-mail clients and free e-mail servers

Why is it that hackers can find ways of gaining access to millions of pcs and the
brains at MS can't figure out a way to stop it? I find it real hard to believe myself.
And who is going to reap the rewards of 'stamped' emails? The Post Office? MS?
I don't see it ever happening.

Well MSN closed most of it's international
Chat, and what is left is a pay service.

Of course you can still watch your favorite
MSN chat room for free .. but cannot
post!

Why not charge for e-mail too?... what
the hell!

Guess Bill Gates is not happy enough with
his $86.6 BILLION!

Gazz

PS, lets hope the UM discussions don't
become inspired and start charging a
pay per post!

Lucky i dont use email so it doesnt really affect me.(its gonna affect my sister bad MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA ) Why dont we start our own mail server and make it free no ones gonna stop you.

I wouldn't worry about it...

I heard of this a little while before and aparently it wont be a large amount at all... less than sending it through the post... something like a couple of cents per e-mail.

For us, this is good because it doesn't cost enough to make a difference to us, but to spammers who send out millions of e-mails a day... it all adds up

stupid obvious way to gain more money . The hackers could probobly figure out a way to hack the stamps and MS knows this , a $ scam off the public using the same ol lame excuse "its for your protection"

The simplest solution is to go after the product manufactures and not the spammer himself. To kill a snake you don't cut off its tail, ya cut off it's head.

My little theory about spammers, virus and other nasty computer problems.

1. Microsoft has built in access ports in WinXP and all its newer software products. Reason: To better serve the cusomer. Real reason. So you cannot install programs that MS does not approve of. (Netscape is a good example) and so MS can access your computer when they want.

2 and I know I'll get blasted for this. But who gains when a new virus comes out? it sure isn't the virus writer, unless of course he works for nortons or mcafee. Why is it they can't update your software without you having to buy a new version or license. And it seems that you have got to buy these updates and new licenses every six months or so. ( I don't, and never will again, use McAfee or Nortons)
Ever since I took those products off my computer I have never had a attack on my system. But hey I see gov. agents behind every rock and two in every tree

Every time I have heard this it has been a hoax....welltime to watch snopes I guess......

Bill Gates has 86.6 billion now?!?!

I would really like to see that happen, I would really like to see if that really works. I don't believe it would work because if their are paid emails then there will always be free emails services with no stamps required. That is crazy.

Xenojjin, Thanks.

My problem is I look for who profits from all this stuff.

I don't see how it would work in the first place. How would microsoft charge you when your e-mail provider isn't microsoft? Charge for each use of Outlook express? I think it's just more monopolizing on their behalf. Or their in with the friggin government trying to drain every cent from our incomes so that we will eventually let the liberals turn the U.S. into a communist country. Lets face it, you all know thats what they want...friggin government, friggin microsoft, friggin Barney and his purpleness, friggin bigfoot is in my garden again *grabs shotgun*!

Darn tootin!

The first time I heard that email soon wouldn't be a free service anymore was 9 years ago. It didn't happen then and it won't happen now.

if we the customer aren't willing to pay for it, then they won't make it

if they do make it, then those of us who know how will find away around it

download a crack or serial number or something to fix it

If it does happen I'm sure spammers will find some way to keep spamming people.

I thought this was all a hoax to.. but
its not, the story is everywhere!

Read on...

NEW YORK (AP) -- If the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying "stamps" for e-mail.

Many Internet analysts worry, though, that turning e-mail into an economic commodity would undermine its value in democratizing communication. But let's start with the math: At perhaps a penny or less per item, e-mail postage wouldn't significantly dent the pocketbooks of people who send only a few messages a day. Not so for spammers who mail millions at a time.

Though postage proposals have been in limited discussion for years -- a team at Microsoft Research has been at it since 2001 -- Gates gave the idea a lift in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Details came last week as part of Microsoft's anti-spam strategy. Instead of paying a penny, the sender would "buy" postage by devoting maybe 10 seconds of computing time to solving a math puzzle. The exercise would merely serve as proof of the sender's good faith.
Time is money, and spammers would presumably have to buy many more machines to solve enough puzzles. The open-source software Hashcash, available since about 1997, takes a similar approach and has been incorporated into other spam-fighting tools including Camram and Spam Assassin.

Meanwhile, Goodmail Systems Inc. has been in touch with Yahoo! Inc. and other e-mail providers about using cash. Goodmail envisions charging bulk mailers a penny a message to bypass spam filters and avoid being incorrectly tossed as junk. That all sounds good for curbing spam, but what if it kills the e-mail you want as well?

Consider how simple and inexpensive it is today to e-mail a friend, relative, or even a city-hall bureaucrat. It's nice not to have to calculate whether greeting grandma is worth a cent. And what of the communities now tied together through e-mail -- hundreds of cancer survivors sharing tips on coping; dozens of parents coordinating soccer schedules? Those pennies add up.
"It detracts from your ability to speak and to state your opinions to large groups of people," said David Farber, a veteran technologist who runs a mailing list with more than 20,000 subscribers. "It changes the whole complexion of the net."

Goodmail chief executive Richard Gingras said individuals might get to send a limited number for free, while mailing lists and nonprofit organizations might get price breaks.
But at what threshold would e-mail cease to be free? At what point might a mailing list be big or commercial enough to pay full rates? Goodmail has no price list yet, so Gingras couldn't say. Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers, said spammers are bound to exploit any free allotments.
"The spammers will probably just keep changing their mailbox names," Cerf said. "I continue to be impressed by the agility of spammers." And who gets the payments? How do you build and pay for a system to track all this? How do you keep such a system from becoming a target for hacking and scams?

The proposals are also largely U.S.-centric, and even with seamless currency conversion, paying even a token amount would be burdensome for the developing world, said John Patrick, former vice president of Internet technology at IBM Corp.

"We have to think of not only, let's say, the relatively well-off half billion people using e-mail today, but the 5 or 6 billion who aren't using it yet but who soon will be," Patrick said.

Some proposals even allow recipients to set their own rates. A college student might accept e-mail with a one-cent stamp; a busy chief executive might demand a dollar.

"In the regular marketplace, when you have something so fast and efficient that everyone wants it, the price goes up," said Sonia Arrison of the Pacific Research Institute, a think tank that favors market-based approaches.

To think the Internet can shatter class distinctions that exist offline is "living in Fantasyland," Arrison said. Nonetheless, it will be tough to persuade people to pay -- in cash or computing time that delays mail -- for something they are used to getting for free.

Critics of postage see more promise in other approaches, including technology to better verify e-mail senders and lawsuits to drive the big spammers out of business.

"Back in the early '90s, there were e-mail systems that charged you 10 cents a message," said John Levine, an anti-spam advocate. "And they are all dead."

Credit To: CNN.com

I could not find this story on MSNBC.com

Wonder why?....hmmmm

Gazz