An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

Sun Jan 20 23:55:55 UTC 2008

>  Yes there are P2P pigs out there but a more 
> common scenario is the canonical "Little Old Lady in a Pink Sweater" 
> with a compromised box which is sending spam at a great rate. 
>    Should 
> she pay the $500 bill when it arrives or would a more prudent 
> and rational approach be like some universities do.

So, does usage-based pricing come along with some kind of
legal liability if the provider does not keep their network
botnet-free? After all, by encouraging botnets (meaning by
understaffing security and abuse desks) they are actually
artificially pumping up their bottom line.

The flip-side of this is how many people would be happy to 
switch to usage-based pricing if they felt that doing so
increased the overall security of the Internet, and reduced
their personal risk of being victims of fraud and identity
theft?

--Michael Dillon