• Wired, Thursday, December 14, 2006 11:01 AM

A new company is hoping to turn the tide on spammers and unwanted marketers by making any senders who don't appear on an approved list pay for your time. San Francisco-based Boxbe has its email users create their own approved senders list, allowing them to send email for free, but anyone else will have to pay a price you designate. It could be as low as 3 cents or as high as $99. Boxbe will give 75% of the funds collected from advertisers that actually pay to users.

As much as we hate spam, relying on users to remember and then add the name of every single person and company they wish to receive email from is hardly practical. In fact, a system where you have to manage your email so thoughtfully is actually more time-consuming than clicking "delete." This, by the way, is assuming that emails that aren't paid for won't be delivered. What happens to new friends and business contacts?

Boxbe co-founder Corbett Barr says, "We're in the process of securing agreements with a wide range of brand-name marketers, from retailers to tech and hardware." But what about everyone else?

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