Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail
Date:   Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:50:52 -0400
From:   Peter Morgan <petermorgan1 () gmail com>
Reply-To:       petermorgan1 () gmail com
To:     'Dave Farber' <dave () farber net>



Dear Prof Farber,


Don't know if you or your readers have seen this but it seems entirely
problematic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/05AOL.html?ei=5094&en=e20151140
e28eea1&hp=&ex=1139202000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

Extract:
"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 1/4 of a cent to a penny
each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people
who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail
and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that
plague users of their services. Thy also stand to earn millions of dollars a
year from the system if it is widely adopted.

AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but
the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they
will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the
gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or
strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from
addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be
treated as spam.

Yahoo and AOL say the new system is a way to restore some order to e-mail,
which, because of spam and worries about online scams, has become an
increasingly unreliable way for companies to reach their customers, even as
online transactions are becoming a crucial part of their businesses."

Peter Morgan
petermorgan1 () gmail com



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