Richard Posner on spam

Richard Posner writes:

A genuine externality created by the Internet that may call for some kind of government regulation is the phenomenon of "spam."

He goes on to explain how spam burdens recipients while only providing a tiny benefit for the spammer.

This is very similar to my recent post on trackback spam and libertarianism where I explained how spamming is a negative sum activity and I recommended making it illegal or taxing it.

I guess great minds think alike.

Comments

[Michael H.]

Hi Half Sigma
I agree that spam could be a real problem. It is a classic example of a negative externality. My email does a pretty good job of filtering out spam, but some does get through.

Taxing spam would be great because the little spam that gets through would be better quality spam that might be something you would like. But I think it would be difficult to implement a tax plan in practice.