"Wired writes about a proposal for solving the spam problem, described by the computer science researcher credited with inventing the smiley face:

Imagine if you could charge people for wasting your time. An IBM researcher has hatched a plan to make it possible. In "Selling interrupt rights: A way to control unwanted e-mail and telephone calls," a paper [forum.pdf] published last week in IBM's Systems Journal, Scott Fahlman argues that spammers should be charged each time they trespass your inbox.
  And it's not just the rascals pushing low mortgage rates and anatomic enhancements by e-mail, said Fahlman, who spent 20 years as a researcher in Carnegie Mellon's computer science department and is credited with using the first e-mail emoticon - the smiley - in 1982. Fahlman says telemarketers, too, should have to pay every time they interrupt dinner. His plan calls for new phones and e-mail software that would require fees to accept incoming messages. The fee would be waived for welcome e-mail and calls, but collected for unsolicited spam and intrusive telemarketing calls.

" On MacInTouch via News Is Free Food for thought...make 'em pay!