Why Not Accountable Anonymity?
1 recently read Pacific Standard's cover article, by Amanda Hess, on a woman's experience being harassed online (warning, very troubling). This got me wondering about internet anonymity and whether an "I'm anonymous, sure, but I'm legit" email service might be possible.Let's say you want to hide your real identity for legitimate reasons. What if there were an 'anonymous' address site charging $50 a year, that had a reputation for kicking out those who abused their anonymity. The site would do this using your annual fee to respond to complaints sent in regarding unacceptable behavior.
Perhaps there could be a software function built into the site that legitimizes or rejects complaints merely by matching a flagged message with a data set of actual sent messages and then looking for telltale words. There would be no privacy in this, of course. Once you sign up, you're inherently allowing the site to read your emails. but it's voluntary and results in...privacy...with a pedigree.
There'd have to be a group acting as judges who'd read complaints, once they were confirmed, and then decide on whether to issue a warning, or suspend an account, if a line had in their opinion been crossed (site policy would of course have to be spelled out in detail).
As the site acquired a name and reputation for itself, potential trouble-makers would be dissuaded from using the site (since they'd risk losing their entry fee, or perhaps a deposit, once expelled), and the site's fee would likely then prove self-sustaining.
Long-term, the site's reputation might encourage other e-mail services to follow suit, and effective on-line policing might be had, all on a voluntary basis.
