This is a bad precedent... if it works, it wil be expanded and soon everyone's costs for communicating on the internet will go up.   AOL can't compete with new technology, so they do this.    

   


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's biggest e-mail providers, said on Monday they would offer a service where companies may choose to charge a tiny fee to ensure that e-mail reaches the intended recipient in a bid to derail spam.

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The service, provided in partnership with privately held Goodmail Systems, will also help the providers better protect their customers from online fraud, spam and phishing attacks, said Goodmail Chief Executive Richard Gingras.

Phishing is a practice where criminals send e-mails asking prospective victims to verify personal data through links to real-looking, but fake, Web sites.

"The main point we want to get across is that you cannot pay to spam or that consumers will have to pay to receive e-mail," Gingras said.

The service will be optional on AOL, a Time Warner Inc. unit, and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news). Fees would only apply to senders such as large financial institutions where it was critical for e-mails to arrive promptly to the intended recipient, Gingras said.

By serving two of the three biggest providers of consumer e-mails, Gingras said, the partnership marked an important step in protecting businesses and consumers from spam and other forms of unwanted electronic messages.

"The in-box can be a dangerous place," Gingras said. "Certified e-mail was created to restore trust for commercial senders."

AOL plans to introduce the service, which would charge fees of about a quarter of a cent per certified e-mail, in the next few weeks with Yahoo following a few months later, Gingras said.

Yahoo spokeswoman Karen Mahon said her company planned to accept certified e-mail from Goodmail to complement Yahoo's existing range of e-mail services.

"Our goal is to provide additional protection against spam and phishing scams to our customers," Mahon said.

The Goodmail service, which will undergo testing over the next several months, should be introduced in the coming year and be mainly targeted at large companies, she said.

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company decided to employ the service after many of its members asked for more tools to combat spam. He also made it clear consumers will bear no financial cost for the service.

"For our members, this is an easy and welcome way to identify mail they want to get more quickly and easily into their in-box," Graham said.

Gingras also said similar partnerships with other e-mail providers would likely follow and that Goodmail would also target business e-mail providers. Yahoo and AOL will also share in revenue as part of the deal with Goodmail.

Goodmail also does a background check on the senders to make sure they are authentic and the company only allows businesses to send permissioned e-mails to existing customers, he said.

Then Goodmail provides a cryptographic token for each message so it can track the e-mail through the system, Gingras said. These safeguards ensure spammers cannot use the system to bypass a junk-mail filter.

The SMTP system was designed to be used with a relatively small, trustworthy, group of users compared to what the internet today has become.

Everybody knows that it's broken, and there needs to be a way to fix it.  Is this the way, probably not, but they see a need.  The corporate world especially needs messages that the sender can trust will arrive, and that the reciever can trust their source.  The current system provides neither.

mixed emotions here...would I pay 1 penny to email if it would prevent spammers from controlling my inbox....maybe


spammers would go broke trying to send billions of emails out, while someone like me that sends maybe 10 emails a week...not so much.


roy d...then again, spamming was probably invented byAOL for the eventual tax scheme cure

.

The idea is not to charge you for sending email to your Aunt Hattie, it's to charge spammers -- er, I mean, large commercial emailers -- so that their emails will not be diverted into your spambox by automatic spam-canning software.

Still a dumb idea.

Why not just fine all the spammers?

There's nothing to fear with this approach: They are just suggesting that certain companies have the option to pay a fee which::

a) Guarantees the email will reach the inbox and not be erroneously tagged as spam.
b) Provides the user with confirmation of the sender's identity - similar to what is already available by examining SSL certificates.

It doesn't set any sort of bad precident, but it won't ultimately stop phishing scams (or spam) either.

Any tax will later be looked at as a "profit center".  We'll forget why the tax was started just like the Spanish American War Tax on long distance telephone calls.  I think they tried to kill it for about 100 years and never did.  It will be easier to defeat terrorism than to control taxation.

Quoted: Why not just fine JDAM all the spammers?

fixed it for you

AOhell is involved any surprise?

I don't use AOL or Yahoo...........
And I don't buy bottled water, either.

Whats fucked up is that the 2 creators of Yahoo! were Hackers and created it in the spirit of "free flow of information" and originally vowed to never charge for anything.

Quoted: There's nothing to fear with this approach: They are just suggesting that certain companies have the option to pay a fee which:: a) Guarantees the email will reach the inbox and not be erroneously tagged as spam. b) Provides the user with confirmation of the sender's identity - similar to what is already available by examining SSL certificates. It doesn't set any sort of bad precident, but it won't ultimately stop phishing scams (or spam) either.

It is a silly unworkable idea that will have zero impact other than costing AOL and Yahoo money.

Have all of you actually read the article carefully? How does this screw anybody? Bad idea or not, I don't see what the problem is.

I agree that email as we know it needs a complete reworking.  Someone needs to start a completely different system instead of trying to upgrade the current system.

Quoted: Quoted: There's nothing to fear with this approach: They are just suggesting that certain companies have the option to pay a fee which:: a) Guarantees the email will reach the inbox and not be erroneously tagged as spam. . Um it sounds like it IS spam, they are just paying to not get booted by the spam filter.

No it doesn't. It sounds like it's intended for businesses who want to ensure that their priority emails actually make it to the user's inbox, while providing the user with confirmation of the sender's identity.

"The main point we want to get across is that you cannot pay to spam or that consumers will have to pay to receive e-mail," Gingras said.

Goodmail also does a background check on the senders to make sure they are authentic and the company only allows businesses to send permissioned e-mails to existing customers, he said.

Quoted: I agree that email as we know it needs a complete reworking.  Someone needs to start a completely different system instead of trying to upgrade the current system.

Plenty of mechanisms are already in place (I've been spam free for a good 3 years). The trick is convincing hundereds upon thousands of mail server administrators the world over to agree on another approach.

It's not as easy as it sounds.

This idea was floated before by none other than Bill Gates and he was
sent packing.
So because AOL and Yahoo want to try it, now its all good?

Quoted: This idea was floated before by none other than Bill Gates and he was sent packing. So because AOL and Yahoo want to try it, now its all good?

No, it was a dumb idea then, and it's a dumb idea now. I'm just pointing out that it isn't going to screw anybody. It's just a dumb idea.

Quoted: Have all of you actually read the article carefully? How does this screw anybody? Bad idea or not, I don't see what the problem is.

The real serious problem is this is a way for AOL and Yahoo to side step fighting spam and improving spam filtering… the SERIOUS problem in this short sided stupid scheme is that it could actually INCREASE spam if companies like AOL and Yahoo neglect  real antispam work.

It is a bad... stupid... counter productive... idea.

Quoted: Quoted: There's nothing to fear with this approach: They are just suggesting that certain companies have the option to pay a fee which:: a) Guarantees the email will reach the inbox and not be erroneously tagged as spam. . Um it sounds like it IS spam, they are just paying to not get booted by the spam filter.

+1

I already pay for email each month when I write comcast a check. I aslo don't get a lot of spam because they have a spam filter that works well. I get maybe three peices a week that get through it. All I do is delete them. I realy don't see spam as that big of a problem. Get a good filter and keep it updated and you should be fine.

Regardless of how this is used...

...Once there is a method of charging for E-mails, you can be assured that the days of free E-mail are over.  The Gov will evenutally tax it.

Fight this, because it is the first step in a slippery slope.

Quoted: Regardless of how this is used... ...Once there is a method of charging for E-mails, you can be assured that the days of free E-mail are over.  The Gov will evenutally tax it. Fight this, because it is the first step in a slippery slope.

How so? I maintain a mail server serving over 80 domains, so I'm all ears.

Quoted: Quoted: There's nothing to fear with this approach: They are just suggesting that certain companies have the option to pay a fee which:: a) Guarantees the email will reach the inbox and not be erroneously tagged as spam. . Um it sounds like it IS spam, they are just paying to not get booted by the spam filter.

But it will still get shit-canned by my anti-spam software, so no big deal.

Quoted: But it will still get shit-canned by my anti-spam software, so no big deal.

Exactly.  Me, Mailwasher (mailwasher.net) and Spamcop (spamcop.net) are still going to be processing all spam that hits the inbox just like we do today.

This is what I dont get.

My inbox is protected by a few geeks in Austin, TX. I NEVER get any spam on my email. But these super huge companies can't figure it out.

Let them charge. I'll jsut simply cut out any AOL and Yahoo and who ever from my emails.

Simple as that.

Quoted: Quoted: But it will still get shit-canned by my anti-spam software, so no big deal. Exactly.  Me, Mailwasher (mailwasher.net) and Spamcop (spamcop.net) are still going to be processing all spam that hits the inbox just like we do today.

I use K-9.  Works great and it's free.

Besides, it's the internet. NO ONE has been able to control it. There will be a way around it.

Wait a minute.  The past few years were just the preparation phase?  Good God.  I need to go buy more Vaseline.

Simple solution.


Run your own mail server.

Quoted: Simple solution. Run your own mail server.

+1!

Quoted: Quoted: Regardless of how this is used... ...Once there is a method of charging for E-mails, you can be assured that the days of free E-mail are over.  The Gov will evenutally tax it. Fight this, because it is the first step in a slippery slope. How so? I maintain a mail server serving over 80 domains, so I'm all ears.

I remember paying Compuserver $.25 an email back in the late 80s, early 90s.

Quoted: Quoted: Simple solution. Run your own mail server. +1!

I don't have 80 domains, only about 10. But my IMail Server runs just fine.

Thinking about moving to Oracle Collaboration Suite though. Unified messaging... all objects stored in my 10g database as BLOBS. Instead of creating a copy of the 20MB attachment file everytime some schmuck wants to forward it to the entire user list, it references the single object record in the DB table.

spam.

All you really need is a "whitelist" of domains and addresses that are always allowed into your mailbox.  Then you'll only get garbage if someone is infected with a virus.

To stop that, all you need to do is switch everyone over to Knoppix.

www.knoppix.net/

It's fine as long as the practice stays with private firms and the government is not involved.

I agree that it is unlikely that it will succeed and I understand it is directed towards commercial users,  but it is a slippery slope.   You can be sure that if enough businesses sign on, it will be expanded.   Then, the race is on to see who can get a piece of the pie.   Goverment will do it "for the children"...