Ed

While I have no idea if this is the truth, and I rather doubt it, it is impossible surely to bill the receiving customer - surely you would bill the sender (as you do with stamps, to use the analogy being used above) which is fine if it cuts out all the crap and spam!

Still not sure how you could bill the user anyway - for example, I use Yahoo email which is free - Yahoo don't have my credit card details or any other way of charging me, so unless the US Gov intends closing them down it wouldn't work (and people could use Yahoo.someothercountry instead of Yahoo.com anyway, where the US Gov doesn't have authority?)

Just my thoughts

Jason