A broad coalition with about 15 million members have started a protest against AOL paid email services called CertifiedEmail. The coalition has people from conservative and progressive political groups, charities, nonprofits, small businesses, labor unions, and Internet advocacy organizations.


A broad coalition with about 15 million members have started a protest against AOL paid email services called CertifiedEmail. The coalition has people from conservative and progressive political groups, charities, nonprofits, small businesses, labor unions, and Internet advocacy organizations.

The coalition has started a website called ‘dearaol’ to address the issue and register the protest.

The home page of the website begins with a letter:

“From: all@dearaol.com
To: postmaster@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 28 13:00:00 EST 2006
Subject: An Open Letter To America Online

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.

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.

Those who did not pay the “email tax” would increasingly be left behind with unreliable service. Your customers expect that your first obligation is to deliver all of their wanted mail, and this plan is a step away from that obligation”. [source]

In February 2006, Yahoo and AOL announced that they were going to charge senders around ¼ of a cent to 1 cent per email. The senders who pay will have their emails routed directly to the recipients’ mailbox without passing through junk mail filters.

An email sent to an AOL subscriber’s mailbox will have a stamp which says “AOL Certified Email” if the sender has paid the fee.

The coalition is seeking people who are concerned that their business or Net activity may be affected by AOL’s “email tax” to sign their letter.

If you would like to sign the letter of the coalition and register your protest against AOL CertifiedEmail, click here.

 

 

 

 

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