AOL's 'Email Tax' Sparks Protest From Mass Mailers

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

02 March 2006

In an effort to combat the effects of phishing and spam, AOL and Yahoo, two of the world's largest internet service providers, are to deploy a certified email system that will result in bulk mailers being charged to guarantee delivery of their messages. However, the new system has been denounced by charitable groups as nothing more than an "email tax" which could lead to a two-tier internet service.

The two companies are planning to use a 'CertifiedEmail' service provided by Goodmail, a technology firm based in California.

Every message that is sent through the Goodmail service is embedded with a cryptographically-secure token. These tokens must be detected by participating Internet service providers (ISPs) before the message can be delivered to recipient's inbox, identified as a CertifiedEmail message. The email is then labeled with a CertifiedEmail symbol in the user's inbox, indicating that the message can be opened with confidence and that it is from an authentic and trusted sender.

Goodmail plans to charge between a quarter of a cent and one cent for each message delivered, with the bulk of the money collected going back to the two ISPs, according to the New York Times.

The Times says that AOL will begin using the new system within a month, while Yahoo plans to test the service in the next few months. Yahoo will also only charge fees to deliver emails relating to purchases and financial transactions.

Barry Appelman, senior vice president and chief web strategist at AOL, says that spam on the AOL service has declined by over 85 percent since its peak in 2003, but stated that he is of the belief that "more work needs to be done" to reduce the levels still further.

"Continuing AOL's unparalleled success at fighting spammers and scammers, we believe this new layer of protection will widen the gap between the amount of good email we want our users to get and the dwindling amount of bad emails they might get," Mr Appelman stated.

However, AOL's decision to charge for certain types of email delivery while maintaining a free service has attracted strong criticism from campaign groups and charities, many of which send millions of emails as part of their fund-raising and awareness initiatives.

"We wish to express our serious concern with AOL's adoption of Goodmail's CertifiedEmail, which is a threat to the free and open Internet," stated a petition sent to AOL by a diverse collection of organisations ranging from medical charities to environmental groups.

"This system would create a two-tiered Internet in which affluent mass emailers could pay AOL a fee that amounts to an "email tax" for every email sent, in return for a guarantee that such messages would bypass spam filters and go directly to AOL members' inboxes," the groups warned.

The petition alleged that the new system will do nothing to reduce spam, because the plan assumes that spam will continue and that mass mailers will be willing to pay to have their emails bypass spam filters.

The groups also contend that the two-tiered system will result in those not paying for email delivery receiving a degraded service.

"The bottom-line is that charging an "email tax" actually gives AOL a financial incentive to degrade email for non-paying senders," they predicted.

The petition also warned that the move to charge for email is the "first step down a slippery slope" towards a less-free and more restricted internet.

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