There's a NEW Mafia in Town

By now you may or may not have heard about a new company called Habeas. If not, let me briefly explain to you what all the hoopla is about. Habeas is offering all of us "protection" from the bad guys (i.e. spammers), and on the surface it sounds all good. That is until you really understand how it will affect you.

I mean, sure, I am tired of getting all the emails telling me how I can enlarge body parts I do not even possess and inviting me to look at naked teenage girls. But this is a small price to pay for my freedom - my delete button works just fine, thank you. Oh yeah, and I am wondering, has the rest of the civilized world heard of filtering your email as it arrives to your inbox? I do not need the help of my Internet Service Provider for this - my IQ indicates that I am above average in intelligence.

And if you decide not to comply (buy into this "protection") with Habeas, then you will surely be crippled. Sure sounds a lot like the Mafia to me. What do I mean by all this? Just stay with me here as I briefly go through the paces.

Habeas (a private corporation, mind you) has proposed that we all pay for a header in all our outgoing emails that identifies the email as legitimate (i.e. not sp*m). And for this "privilege", we will be required to pay.

Small businesses, those who make less than $100,000 a year, will pay a fee of $200 a year for the privilege of sending email to people who have legitimately requested it. Outrageous! But that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Those business owners that make over $100,000 a year will be required to pay