Summary

In this paper we examined the fundamental implications of the two different traffic delivery models, sender-push vs. receiver-pull, on controlling unwanted traffic on the Internet. Using examples of three popular applications - email, mobile text messaging, and asynchronous voice messaging - we illustrated that the receiver-pull model can be effectively used for asynchronous messaging in place of the current sender-push model to reduce unwanted Internet traffic. Another important contribution of this paper is that, by examining the implications of two traffic delivery models, we attempt to raise explicit awareness of the impact of the two models on unwanted Internet traffic, and argue that, a receiver-pull model should be strongly favored, whenever appropriate.