Gadgetopia

Fight Spam With Pennies : I hope this works.  I fear it won’t.  (Although, to be honest, Gmail has pretty much eliminated spam from my life anyway.)

Fight spam by donating to your favorite charity. That’s how researchers at Yahoo are hoping to convince people to put a virtual one-cent stamp on their outgoing e-mails. Sending a penny-stamped e-mail through Yahoo’s (not yet released) CentMail program would automatically mark it as “real mail” and get it past any spam filters, Wired reports. As an added incentive, the penny goes to the charity of your choice. Critics argue that it’s only a matter of time before spammers figure out how to make counterfeit stamps.

Bill Gates had a similar plan a few years back for the same thing, with much lower costs involved.