This sounds like an awesome idea, and I immediately began musing over the idea of a world in which it was globally illegal to send mass messages anywhere in the

This sounds like an awesome idea, and I immediately began musing over the idea of a world in which it was globally illegal to send mass messages anywhere in the world without an initial opt-in. Sadly, I immediately realized that if such a law was passed, the major email providers would all implement the opt-in check using a web-based system (as opposed to a fundamentally email-based one, on easily argued "convenience" and "accessibility" and "user experience" grounds), and thus achieve vendor lock-in. In the end it would amount to another form of implicit censorship through badly managed filters and whatnot.