Since email’s modest beginnings as an academic tool it has become the cornerstone business communication and commerce medium, preferred even over Web portals. Despite its history, current significance, and future promise, the modern world threatens email’s integrity, reliability, and efficacy.

Today, the estimated annual cost of spam and phishing combined exceeds $113 billion in direct monetary and non-monetary losses. This recurring cost to the US economy is nothing short of astounding. Despite efforts from both government and private industry independently, the costs associated with spam and phishing continue to grow. After spending almost a decade researching spam and phishing, and doing business with experts in the private and public sectors, I believe a public-private partnership that incorporates the U.S. Postal Service Electronic Postmark (EPM) platform is one of the best methods of mitigating the negative impacts of spam and phishing while contributing to a sustainable U.S. economy. Our supporters agree although it will take significant time and hard work by many for this to work effectively.

A necessary element for this service to run properly includes a tokenization platform that enables delivery and receipt of multiple classes of email within the existing email ecosystem. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as AOL and Yahoo! that adopt the platform guarantee the delivery and full functionality of these various classes of email by allowing them to bypass filters used to block spam and phishing emails. This enables a valuable way for the trusted brand and legal enforcement of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to extend into email.

I believe that the service described above, which Epostmarks named PostmarkedEmail, has the potential to save the U.S. economy billions annually. In addition to cost savings, I believe that national implementation of the PostmarkedEmail service will create new jobs and provide existing employees with modern skills, particularly within the USPS.

In prior articles, I elaborated on the costs to consumers and businesses due to spam and phishing.