dwrixon said:
I am afraid this is a bit too technical for me, but I fail to see why any levy would be limited to a given protocol.
I don't believe that there are any untaxable jurisdictions as services could be suspended for those that act outside the system. If the poorest countries were net beneficaries, there would be no reason for them not to co-operate.
Best Regards
Dave Wrixon
The concept is relatively simple - to be able to tax an email, "they" must know that an email has been sent. The SMTP protocal is basically just an agreed-upon language which the servers speak when trying to deliver your mail. Think of it like taxing the English language $1 per word. Everyone would start speaking French.
Firstly, with the vast matrix of connectivity that is the internet, there is no central point at which all emails travel through. Unless "they" could force everyone to upgrade their mail servers (running any number of different mail systems on any number of different Operating Systems) to include some sort of taxing system, there is no way they could even tell if you'd sent an email. Who would provide the tech support for such a rollout? How would they prevent modification to the tax software by those of us with a hex-editor and a couple of hours up our sleeve?
Secondly, there is no "they" - contrary to popular belief the US doesn't own the internet. Every country can do what they please, irrespective of what Microsoft, the US and the UN want. Sure, some Western countries would play along, but the spammers can move to (or at least host from) any of the majority of countries who wouldn't.
Thirdly, if they implement the tax system add-on to everyone's email servers, we'd just write another protocol. I guarantee within 24 hours there would be a secondary system for mail delivery. Then "they" would have to force everyone to install a taxing system on that..