Yahoo & AOL holding your email hostage! (charging for delivery)

It appears that Yahoo and AOL are going to start holding subscription-based emails hostage unless we pay a "toll"
Sounds a little mafioso to me

Full article here:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060206GoodmailIsABadIdea.html

How many of you webmasters will be affected by this? I'm sure if you publish a newsletter and use services like constantcontact.com you will find your services depreciated by such a change - not to mention those of you who run forums. Heck, even I get 5 or 6 emails a day from DigitalPoint alone.

 

It's all about the money..

 

I believed this is only being charged for companies that want their email delivered straight into their customers or prospects inbox so that it could not be viewed as junk email?

You could easily decline this but just as now it might turn up in the junk mail folder.

 

Something about this idea of to tired service bugs me, and especially because if a user opts-in (requests to be send info) AOL & Yahoo should be working to make sure they get the message regardless on whether the marketer can afford to pay or not.

 

Well, Bill Gates has an idea on how to stop spam once and for all, but I sure as hell don't like it. According to the BBC, this guy is talking about creating the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3426367.stm.

I think the idea is stupid, and the beginning of corporate control over the net. I guess if this plan works, only people with "lots of money" will be able to send out spam messages. I wander who those people will be?

Anyway, I wanted to get your thoughts. The idea of creating an electronic postage stamp is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of in my life. There is no way in hell I'm paying money just to send out electronic mail.

 

That 'electronic postage stamp' is a way for the government and rich corporations to gain the control over the internet that they gravely desire.

I don't see that happening though, even if we couldn't use Outlook without this function, I'm sure there will be some open source mail client created to usurp this atrocity.

 

I agree with that 100%

 

Postage doesn't stop spam. I get crap in the regular mail everyday...credit card offers, domain registration stuff, auto loans..etc. etc. etc..

 

My SPAM filters are working just fine.

It's not that damn difficult.

 

I agree. The idea is, the only people who will be able spend hundreds of thousands of bucks to send out spam will be big companies instead of small ad agencies and businesses. I don't know who in the hell Bill Gates thinks he is trying to fool. I literally started laughing when I read the article. I guess this guy thinks just because he is the wealthiest person in the world people just accept any idea he comes up with.

I love how he tries to put a spin on it, saying how bad it is for people to receive spam but then turning around and saying by paying to send out emails, spam will be reduced.

No Billy, the big corps will simply be able to send out spam more than anyone. In fact Gates has a lot of nerves even talking about it with all the spam I get in my "MSN" hotmail inbox.

I, along with millions of other seasoned internet users are simply not going to pay for it. Hell, I'd rather get spam in my inbox that have to pay stupid corporations money just to send out emails

 

I get so much spam

 

AOL to Charge Extra for Email

In an effort to limit unwanted and fraudulent e-mail, AOL
announced plans to begin charging "postage" for delivering some
e-mail to their customers. Under the system, companies that pay
to have their e-mail delivered will receive preferential
service.

A third party, Goodmail, will collect the fees and verify the
source of messages. E-mail from nonpaying senders will still be
delivered, but it will be routed through spam filters and other
mechanisms, which could prevent it from reaching its target. The
hope is that the fees will discourage spammers from sending
billions of unsolicited messages every day. A spokesperson from
AOL compared the plan to the current functioning of the postal
system. Certified mail, for example, is guaranteed to be
delivered "in a way that is different from other mail," he said.

Some analysts said e-mail postage will only lead to
disagreements between senders and ISPs. Many e-mail marketers
also rejected the idea, saying that there are already mechanisms
in place, such as a service called Bonded Sender, that verify
the legitimacy of e-mail and that cost significantly less than
the proposed charges.



My thoughts are this: AOL should charge THEIR users to send email out.
That would stop so much spam coming from aol!!!

 

Lol, thats what I'm saying. If AOL tries to charge they're just going to lose most of their customers.

 

Under this plan, AOL is charging the companies- not the users.

This really doesn't effect users because right now you aren't getting the email (directly) anyway- it's going in your spam folder.

The fee is for companies that want to avoid their messages going into the spam folder.

 

WebWriter,

I believe iowadog was mentioning the fact that a lot of spam originates from AOL accounts not the amount heading into AOL accounts

 

That sounds pretty vague to me. What constitutes a company? How much money do you have to make to be defined as a company?

There are lots of online businesses. Technically many people here at DP own online businesses or "companies." Are you saying we will have to pay money to send out newsletters to our subscribers?

One thing you have to remember is that it always starts small. It may start with companies, but next thing you know users will be hit to.

I don't buy the whole thing. It isn't going to stop spam.

 

This is why God invented Gmail. I don't know why anyone would pick AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo over Gmail.

 

I read an article on CNN that Yahoo is planning to charge marketers to send out their commercial emails.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/06/tech...ex.htm?cnn=yes

While Yahoo is claiming how it will benefit the users from getting spam, it's just an attempt to make another form of revenue for their company and there's no potential value for the regular email users.

 

can you please repost the link? becasue it is not working

 

They can charge all they want for their crap service - too much spam is why I dropped my accounts