AOL, Yahoo! to charge fees for some email by Cliff Jones, Bureau Editor
AOL and Yahoo! will begin charging a fee for the delivery of some bulk email in the next 30-60 days. The announced launch of Goodmail System's "CertifiedMail" is stated be part of ongoing efforts to reduce "spam" and identity theft by email through a process called "phishing."
Goodmail will charge a fraction of a cent for each mail sent through their system. The company informed the New York Times their system is intended only for certifying the validity of bulk mailings, and is not intended to lead to eventual charges for all email.
It is hoped legitimate mass-mailers will utilize the system to bypass labyrinthine filters presently used to screen emails for spam and phishing. By paying the fee, emails will skip such scrutiny, which oftentimes strips content out of emails, delivers them late or not at all, and can cause mail to be shunted to customer's "junk" folders upon receipt.
The new program will provide a verification "trust symbol" accompanying the email, verifying it as non-malicious.
AOL intended the program would replace it's successful "Enhanced Whitelist," which monitors mass-mail sender's activities and compares them with any complaints which may have been lodged against them, basically an honor system. There is no fee associated with the Enhanced Whitelist.
But in the wake of resistance from mass-mailers and the public, AOL has since reversed it's decision and announced the Whitelist will continue alongside the new CertifiedMail. Still, AOL views CertifiedMail as the way of the future, citing numerous flaws with the Whitelist a clever spammer could easily work around.
But some people are not so sure of the stated intent of this move. Citing AOL's own pronouncements recently that it has already reduced spam received by it's customers by 75 percent, Steve Elliott, President of Grassfire.org, believes there's more to it than spam.
"This “fee” is really a private-sector “tax” on groups like Grassfire that, I believe, will open the door for more fees, taxes and regulations on email. It could very well mark the beginning of the end of the free Internet," says Elliott in a recent Grassfire press release.
Elliott observes that AOL and Yahoo! presently serve approximately 50% of all email in America, and fears smaller providers will quickly jump on board to avail themselves of a newfound "gold mine."
He also imagines organizations such as his will be maneuvered into paying fees for email or face virtual extinction. Indeed, according to Elliott his organization has seen an alarming increase in it's mail being blocked by AOL and Yahoo! just in the last 30 days. He sees CertifiedMail as the establishment of different "classes" of email; pay and his recent difficulties would no doubt disappear.
He even sees potential "federalizing" of email or perhaps the Internet itself on the horizon. Suggesting how a "scandal" could emerge, he posits "Suddenly, we will have a free-speech crisis and Congress will come to our “rescue” and federalize email."
Bolstering Mr. Elliott's general view is recent talk of a "two tier Internet," where the bigger you are, the more Internet resources you get.
Mr. Elliot sees CertifiedMail as intended to stifle free speech and innovation on the internet, adding ominously that if his vision is correct, "...the email lifeline of our economy will begin to have the efficiency of the US postal system."
Original Investigative Journalism from the
Columnist Guild News Bureau
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