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[PLUG] Fwd: [Sc-Ir] FW: The AOL - Good Mail TAX !!!
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Anyone know where this is being discussed? (Or any other details
about it?)
The Press Release from L-soft is here:
http://www.lsoft.com/news/aol-goodmail.asp
I happen to know Eric Thomas from years ago in BITNET days and
respect his point of view. To me this Goodmail thing does sound quite
nasty.
This following is one commentary I received.
Begin forwarded message:
On 03 Feb, 2006, at 11:31, David C Abernathy wrote:
The following was passed on to me from a couple different lists
that I am
on. If this happens, I can see all of the good work that the likes of
Rootsweb.com going away.
Thanks for listening to my 2 bits worth.
Thanks,
David C Abernathy
Email disclaimers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
This message represents the official view of the voices in my head.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
http://www.SchmeckAbernathy.com
L-Soft has joined the growing number of companies that protest
against
AOL's recent announcement that it will phase out its Enhanced
Whitelist
service in June in favour of Goodmail CertifiedEmail, which carries
an as
yet unspecified per-message fee. In a nutshell, companies like L-
Soft get on
the AOL whitelist by following good e-mail practices, such as
cleaning up
dead addresses, making it easy for people to leave mailing lists,
and of
course not sending any spam. This is all going to be thrown out the
window and replaced with the payment of hard currency to Goodmail.
People
who can afford to pay this fee will have the privilege of
reaching AOL
subscribers, others will end up in junk folders. Yahoo is
expected to
follow down the same path.
I have nothing against certification as an additional tool in the
fight
against spam. Knowing that message such and such genuinely comes
from its
purported sender can help improve the accuracy of your spam
filter. I
also understand that certification costs money, unless sponsored
by the
government or by volunteers donating their time to the cause. But I
think
per-message certification fees make as much sense as per-
click SSL
certificate fees. I also find that the "rumoured" rates that
have been
mentioned in some of the press articles are totally out of
proportion
with the service being provided. The fee is several times what
providers
currently charge for the service of hosting the mailing list,
removing
dead addresses, making backups, etc. As an illustration, a typical
hobby
list would cost on the order of $500-1000 a year. An active list
could
cost $10k or more a year. This may not be much for the
advertisement
manager of a large company, not when compared to print adverts,
but what
about the rest of us? I know L-Soft hosting customers cannot
afford the
price increase that would be necessary to cover an identification
fee of
five figures PER DAY.
And for many of us, this identification fee is not even an option.
To be
eligible for Goodmail accreditation, you must "have business
headquarters
located in the United States or Canada." Foreigners need not
bother. You
must also "have at least a 6 month mailing history from [the] IP"
address
from which you are sending your newsletter. This of course makes
it very
difficult to switch ISPs if you are not satisfied with the one
you are
using. A new ISP means a new IP address, and Goodmail will then
shut you
down for "at least 6 months." A nice 'protection' plan for the ISP,
but a
disaster for customers.
Anyway, here is a link to our full press release, which has been
sent to
major publications today. And I want to salute the courage
of the
executives at hosting-only companies that have spoken up and
protested,
knowing full well that they would go out of business in a
matter of
months were their access to AOL and Yahoo mailboxes to be cut
off in
retaliation. In the post-Enron era, this kind of corporate
courage is
very rare indeed. I stand on much firmer ground, as hosting is
only a
side activity at L-Soft, but I can still imagine what must
have gone
through their mind before they hit the send button.
T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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