Art and others,

First, I believe the Canadian story was a hoax, but to clarify the situation
on the USPS and other Postal Services (Royal Post in the UK, etc)...

We need to draw a distinction between what is "mail", a "mailbox", the "mail
carrier" and other components, and who owns them.

This goes to the heart of spamming as well, by the way:

Speaking strictly for the United States, and the US Postal Service (ha,
there's a word for ya - Service - at least around here -- hehehe) -- The
USPS owns the mailboxes on the street, and technically owns your mailbox at
your house.  It is illegal, for instance, to deposit a note in your
neighbor's mailbox without proper postage, and the MAIL CARRIER must do the
depositing.  The USPS owns the "transport" - it transports the mail from
point A, to point B, in the us, and ultimately (and eventually) to it's
destination.  (The sarchasm, by the way, is local to us, I'm not speaking
for the entire USPS, which I'm sure does a fine job).

The sender pays the postage - and this includes Junk Mailers -- they pay to
send their junk through the mail (third class lowest rate, but they still
pay).  Spammers don't really pay postage for the privilege of having you
receive their spam.  Since they don't pay (and most don't - they use their
employers systems, or get the freebie Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. accounts) - they
are basically usurping (stealing) services owned by those who DO own the
equipment.

(BTW - the "depositing a note in your neighbor's mailbox" bit above is
"technically" illegal, but I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for
it...

Now - back on topic -- the USPS has no claim on:

(1) Your personal e-mail client - that's yours and yours alone (unless it's
on your employer's PC, then it's your employer's, for your use)

(2) Your email box, whether it be at work, your personal ISP account, a free
HOTMAIL mailbox, etc.  That belongs to the ISP or your company, for your
exclusive use.  It belongs to YOU, if you own the SMTP server.

(3) The SMTP Server - that belongs to your company or your ISP.  If you own
the server, then guess what, that too, belongs to you.  (Some of us are just
plain lucky, I guess :)

In other words, the USPS cannot charge postage for e-mail, because they do
not own the equipment, the software, the mailboxes or the mail clients!  If
anyone says otherwise, is in need of education on how e-mail works.  If the
USPS came in here, and said that I had to pay US$0.33 per 1000 character
e-mail, they better have a rather large check to pay for some software,
hardware and internet service provider fees.  It would never happen, and
they would never come in and do that.  If the USPS were to try and do that,
then ALL email that originates or terminates in the US, would be required to
pass through one or more USPS SMTP servers.  The way the internet is set up,
that would be virtually impossible.

Again, this applies to the US -- the laws in your country may vary.

Cheers,
Joe