AOL accused of planning ‘two-tier’ internet (FT.COM, 1 Mar 06)]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: AOL accused of planning ‘two-tier’ internet (FT.COM, 1 Mar 06)
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 12:33:28 EST
From: GLIGOR1 () aol com
used of planning  ‘two-tier’ internet
By Chris Nuttall  in San Francisco
Published: February 28 2006 22:40 | Last updated: March 1  2006 01:35
_www.ft.com_ (http://www.ft.com)

_AOL_
(http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/quotechartnews.asp?FTSite=FTCOM&q=TWX&searchtype&expanded=&countrycode=us&s2=us&symb=TWX&company=NEW)
, the
internet service provider, has been accused of  planning to introduce an
“e-mail
tax” that could lead to a two-tiered  internet.
An unlikely coalition of civil liberties groups, charities, non-profit
organisations, bloggers and gun owners have launched a website,
_DearAOL.com_
(http://www.dearaol.com/) , to  promote a letter-writing campaign
against the
service. They also threatened a  boycott of AOL.
AOL said its CertifiedEmail programme was not a tax but an optional,
voluntary way for large e-mail senders to pay to deliver authenticated,
 legitimate
mail. It said it intended to launch the service within the next 30  days.
Goodmail, the provider of the new service, said last October that it was
entering into a partnership with AOL and its rival _Yahoo_
(http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/quotechartnews.asp?FTSite=FTCOM&q=YHOO&searchtype&expanded=&cou
ntrycode=us&s2=us&symb=YHOO&company=NEW)  to offer a service that would
send
users e-mails  they had opted to receive and protect them from spam and
fraud.

Companies choosing to use the service would pay AOL and Goodmail an
estimated
 quarter of a cent for every message sent to every e-mail address on their
mailing lists.
“It looks like this is pay-to-play or take your chances with the spam
filter
– this would cost us thousands of dollars a week,” Eli Pariser, executive
director of _MoveOn.org_ (http://www.moveon.org/) , a non-profit civil
liberties group, told a  media conference call.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said “if AOL
pulls
the trigger on this”, he would advise his members to boycott the service
provider.
“Our members are already suspicious of government and corporate meddling
in
their private affairs; this would probably result in many fewer gun owners
being  AOL customers.”
Other protesters taking part in the call were the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), Free Press, Craig Newmark, founder of _Craigslist.org_
(http://www.craigslist.com/) ,  the Association of Cancer Online Resources,
DemocracyInAction.org and Tim  O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media.
“We spoke to Yahoo! and they seemed much more tentative about this,” said
Danny O’Brien of the EFF, explaining the decision to focus the protest
on  AOL.
“We felt AOL had planted its flag in the ground very clearly and that,
if we
could show the rest of the industry that what AOL is doing is wrong, we
could
 nip this in the bud.”
AOL said other companies were looking at special handling and delivery of
e-mail, including Microsoft and Google. It said the product would be
another
tier, similar to next-day delivery offered by the post office, that
would not
hurt the service for other senders.


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