FReeper Canteen ~ Tech Tuesday: Email Tax ~ Would you pay for email guarantees? ~ 07 March 2006

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[MoJo2001]

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Technology Tuesday
 

GummyIII will return next week (if possible), but she's busy saving the world from a chocolate shortage! It's an important job we wouldn't trust to just anyone. Definitely not something for MoJo.

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Since many of our Troops use AOL, we wanted to know what you thought about AOL's plans for folks to pay for GoodMail. Is it something worth fretting over, a new enterprising an idea, or another way for which companies can milk money out of consumers already using free email services?

 

What's This About?
In February 2006, AOL announced that it would accept payment for incoming emails. For these certified emails, it would skip its usual anti-spam filters and guarantee delivery for cash. Our coalition believes that the free passage of email between Internet users is a vital part of what makes the Internet work. When ISPs demand a cut of "pay-to-send" email, they're raising tollbooths on the open Net, interfering with the passage of data by demanding protection money at the gates of their customers' computers. Read More
 

 

What's this controversy all about?

AOL has proposed the adoption of a system called CertifiedEmail, provided by Goodmail Systems. Under this pay-to-send system, affluent mass-emailers who are willing to pay AOL the equivalent of an "email tax" would get to bypass AOL's spam filters and get guaranteed delivery to the inboxes of AOL customers.

Everyone who can't afford to pay AOL's "email tax" - including charities, small businesses, civic organizations, and even families with mailing lists - will have no guarantee that their emails will be delivered. If other companies follow AOL in adopting pay-to-send systems, the Internet will become permanently divided into two classes of users - those who can afford to pay for guaranteed delivery and everyone else left behind with unreliable service.

Though billed in the media as an anti-spam and anti-phishing measure, AOL's pay-to-send system will fail on both scores.

AOL's "email tax" will cause great harm to the free and open Internet that many of us take for granted. The Internet is a revolutionary force for free speech, civic organizing, and economic innovation specifically because it is open and accessible to all Internet users. With a free and open Internet, small ideas can become big ideas overnight. AOL's move to introduce a pay-to-send system is a danger to this openness, and we urge them to reconsider.

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Which brings us to the next question: Is this something to get hyper over? Or is it a real concern? Would you pay for the service?

 

What say you?

 

 

Disclaimer:
Do you ever wonder why companies always put disclaimers at the bottom of their pages? And then they expect you to read the *fine print* as well? Well, this is done for a reason. It allows them to make up a bunch of unecessary rules and BS that no one will read nor thinks about reading. As a matter of fact, the disclaimers are really *Dating Ads* that those anonymous computer geeks put out to the general public. It's a way to get them a date via their disclaimers. It's risk free and also a sure way to ensure that their name will appear in the ad somewhere. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you totally understand the ideas about disclaimers. They're useless for the most part.

 

 

[luvie]

Thank you!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Sending prayers, Zacs Mom, that you continue to heal with no set backs like infections. The link is beautiful. Thanks to your hubby for his service to our country.

[Coop]

Big hug going out to ya!

[Mia T]

The beauty of your work comes from the beauty within. Thank you for sharing it. You are very special, Zacs Mom.