Bill Gates on Spam, and Lessig's Critique

Bill Gates has written a letter to the US Senate Commerce Committe about spam. Lawrence Lessig thinks Microsoft's idea won't work. But then again, I'm on record as believing that Lessig's own idea won't work either. Spam is an economic problem. Unfortunately, I believe that the cost of implementing and operating the trusted authority that Gates proposes will preculde its success. Verisign couldn't even prevent someone from fooling them into issuing a Microsoft Corp. signing certificate. How could they, or anyone, police a certification system that required continuing investigation into every mail sender's compliance with opt-in, opt-out or labeling requirements?

Of course, the problem would go away if nobody ever bought anything from spammers. It's hard to believe anybody does. Have you ever bought from a spammer? Has anybody you know? Obviously, some tiny fraction of people are making it worthwhile for spammers to stay in business. Hmmm... I wonder if we should attack the problem by making purchasing from spammers illegal? Or maybe Gates could build filters into IE so that it will know that you've clicked on a link that came in a spam message, and IE would just freeze. It's really already pretty good at freezing anyhow ;-)