As if the government didn't tax enough of everything...


[quote]

Subject: Federal Bil HB 602-Mail Charge

Guess the warnings were true. Federal Bill 602P
charges 5-cents per E-mail sent. It figures! No more
free E-mail! We knew this was coming!!

House Bill 602P will permit the Federal Government to
charge a 5-cent charge on every delivered E-mail.

Please read the following carefully if you intend
to stay online and continue using E-mail. The last
few months have revealed an alarming trend in the
Government of the United States attempting to quietly
push through legislation that will affect our use of
the Internet.

Under proposed legislation, the US Postal Service
will be attempting to bill E-mail users out of
"alternative postage fees."


Bill 602P will permit the Federal Government to
charge a 5-cent surcharge on every e-mail delivered,
by billing Internet Service
Providers at source.

The consumer would then be
billed in turn by the ISP. Washington, DC lawyer
Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this
legislation from becoming law.

The US Postal Service is claiming lost revenue, due
to the proliferation of E-mail, is costing nearly
$230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have
noticed their recent ad campaign: "There is nothing
like a letter."

Since the average person received about 10 pieces
of E-mail per day in 1998, the cost of the typical
individual would be an additional 50 cents a day -- or
over $180 per year -- above and beyond their regular...Note that this would be money paid directly to the
US Postal Service for a service they do not even
provide.

The whole point of the Internet is democracy and
noninterference.

You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail
mail because of bureaucratic inefficiency. It
currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be
delivered from coast to coast. If the US Postal
Service is allowed to tinker with E-mail, it will mark
the end of the "free" Internet in the United States.

Congressional representative, Tony Schnell (R) has
even suggested a "$20-$40 per month surcharge on all
Internet service" above and beyond the governments
proposed E-mail charges. Note that most of the
major newspapers have ignored the story the only
exception being the Washingtonian which called the
idea of E-mail surcharge "a useful concept who's time
has come" (March 6th, 1999 Editorial). Do not sit!

Send this E-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and tell
all your friends and relatives to write their
congressional representative and say "NO" to Bill
602P.

It will only take a few moments of your time and
could very well be instrumental in killing a bill we
do not want.

PLEASE FORWARD!

Capitol Switchboard 800-648 3516
Light it up!
Michael

Are you still a moron? I said that the idea has been floated time and again within the computer industry, and provided links to prove it. That was all I said. That was the whole point of my original post.

Are you still blind?? There is NO proposal!!

Uh, moron, why don't you try READING before clicking the reply button?

I brought up the fact that the computer industry has been talking about fee-based email for several years now. The industry has been talking about this since at least 1998. Here's another source.

regah brought up the point that, if this ever became law, how this proposal might affect IM users, I just said it wouldn't. For one thing, every proposal, editorial or discussion I've ever seen or participated in on this only concerned email. For another thing, it is not practically feasible to charge per line you send on IM, which is what regah seemed to be getting at.

Whether or not it's an actual bill that's going to be presented to Congress, I don't know. A quick check of the current HB 602, which is the number Joey gave, turns up something totally unrelated to email. And House Bills don't have suffixes like the 'P' as far as I've ever seen. I think the actual bill itself is an urban legend. But a charge-per-email as a way to eliminate spam is an idea that is very real and that has been tossed around the computer industry for a long time.

quote:

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This is nothing new. The computer industry has been talking about it for years as a way to control junk email (SPAM!). It's likely the only viable method.

---

quote:

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Besides, the proposals all concern email only. Not enough people use IM to care about addrressing the spam issues.

---

Are you blind? There is NO proposal, you are talking out of your ***.

It would be too technically difficult to charge by every single message you send on AIM. Besides, that would kill IM. Except in a few cases, the government doesn't want to kill industry when it could make money off it instead.

Besides, the proposals all concern email only. Not enough people use IM to care about addrressing the spam issues.

well think about aim, what if they charged us 2 cents for every im conversation we had. it would be like 300 or more bucks a day

This is nothing new. The computer industry has been talking about it for years as a way to control junk email (SPAM!). It's likely the only viable method. The industry is currently working on a user-authentication method to track senders of email; This is just an extension of that. Five cents per email is still nothing compared to the cost of mail postage, not to mention the costs of paper, printing, envelopes, etc. Although I personally think 5 cents is too much - it might discourage people from casually emailing to say Hi and such - it's on the right track. I think 1 cent per email is enough to discourage mass-mailers because even at a penny apiece, a single bulk-emailing campaign could cost them hundreds of thousands if not millions.

but think about it, if there were a tax on email...junkmail could be eliminated. how nice. however much we rely on email, postal will always be a necessity. it certainly wouldnt kill me to pay 2 pennies for every email i write. because think of all the money im saving on postage. hmm 34 cents and the gas money to go get them vs. the nothing that it costs me to send an email. we take it for granted and america has forgotten what it feels like to recieve a letter from your grandma sealed with a kiss. and when you can see the acctual lipstick on the envelope it just makes you glow inside

Oops.

Well, I made sure I covered my tracks on my brand new blog:

http://www.xanga.com/joeydauben/

Joey is constantly giving out hoaxes and other ridiculous information. Dont listen to anything he has to say if you enjoy truth or honesty.
I grabbed the actual HR602 bill and put it on my website so you can all see what a fool Joey is.

The actual HR602

There isnt even 602P, Joey is such a gulible pushover!

http://www.kengreene.net/hoax/602p.htm


Summary:
Warnings of House of Representatives/US Postal Service asking for tax on emails

Circulation:
1999

Status:
Hoax

The Debunking:

There is no Federal Bill 602P. The US House of Representatives prefaces their bills with H.R. (as in H.R. Bill 115). The Senate uses S. Therefore Bill 602P couldn't have come from the US Congress.
The US Post Office has no authority to claim a tax on your ISP. (That's a fact!)
There is no Congressman Schnell.
There is no lawyer named Richard Stepp. The original version claimed that Mr. Stepp was from Concord Street in Vienna, VA. Needless to say, there is no Concord Street. That's why that was stripped from this version (by someone that wanted to keep it alive).
The Washingtonian, a respected magazine, wrote no such article regarding the proposed 'tax'. In fact, they don't have a March 6th issue as they are a monthly magazine.
Oh, by the way, your emails never were free. Do you remember paying your ISP for access to the internet? there already is a tax figured into your internet costs. So, I guess the government does get its' share!

The moral to the story is: If someone tells you to forward something to everyone you know, it is always a hoax.

According to news reports, during a NY Senate debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio on Oct 8, 2000, both were asked their view of Bill 602P and both expressed their opposition to it. Rick Lazio went so far as to say "This is an example of the government's greedy hand in trying to take money from taxpayers that, frankly, it has not right to. We need to keep the government's hands off the Internet."

So, if you were duped by this hoax, you're in good company!

Can I ask where you got your information from? B/c I called my local congressman and his staff told me that this was a false bill. Please IM me at fishncips852 on aim if you find more information about this.