Posted on 02/05/2006 1:33:40 PM PST by LurkedLongEnough
NEW YORK Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers.
America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from a quarter of a cent to 1 cent each to have them delivered.....
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Futile. It may stop messages from companies, but it won't stop spam. The companies may also find a way around that.
hmmm... when do I drop my yahoo account and webhosting service?
the end of AOL and yahoo
I guess they have not paid attention to the Times Select fiasco.
Course it won't stop spam. Most spammers forge their Sender and Reply-To addresses and trick SMTP servers into "thinking" it's supposed to receive mail, but the SMTP server looks at the address of the e-mail and legitimately sends it off to the legitimate receipiant's mailbox somewhere else. If your adept at reading long SMTP headers, you can get an idea just where the mail originally came from and what that computer's IP address was.
I have an MSN email client. Works great, except when I try to send email to friends who have AOL. The next day, or two days later, I get an error message saying that the email has been delayed, but don't resend it. It eventually gets delivered but only after the need for it has passed. MSN tells me that this is not uncommon and that they're "in negotiations" with AOL attorneys about the fact that AOL is apparently trying to force people to use AOL to communicate with other AOL customers.
Talk about bad business policy!
This idea isn't exactly new. This idea was proposed by Bill Gates several years ago to combat spam, and to create an electronic postage stamp for the masses. Ironically, that idea didn't warm over the crowd too well.
Hotmail was like that a few years ago. I can remember e-mailing my folks in the morning, and they wouldn't receive that same e-mail until 6-8 hours later.
Or even the more insane... Salon Select.
So if spammers don't pay up, their mail won't get delivered? I can dream, can't I?
Ever since my provider installed a spam/virus firewall, I haven't gotten spammed or sent an e-mail virus or trojan horse in 3 years, even though I still do run AVG silently in the background.
There is a reason Time/warner wants to drop the AOL from their name.
AOL has a HORRIBLE reputation for EVERYTHING.
The only way this works is the fact AOL has a captive audience of the "less than" computer savy.
What AOL needs to fear is if people are going to be able to take their email adress with them like phone numbers.
I am dropping AOhHell next week when Sprint finishes installing DSL at my place in the Everglades.
I will host a party to celebrate the end of the phone modem era and the firing of AOhHell.
The last payment to those Liberal, anti-gun Liberals is in sight. A Pox upon them, and Yahoo, too.
Works great, except when I try to send email to friends who have AOL.
Any email I send to an AOL member always comes back undelivered. What I've found is they have to send me an email so my address gets put in their address book. Then I can send email to them. This has worked for me but with AOL there are no quarantees except FU's.
bump for later
Shoot, I celebrated when I got rid of AOHell. It was a major victory for me. I felt calm, and relieved. I remember hooking up my wireless, it was great. Only got one virus since I got rid of AOL. Got like hundreds of them while using it.
It is rumored that AOL is owned by the Mafia.
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