AOL Won't Budge on Email Tax
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:56 AM
from the stubborn-coots dept.
from the stubborn-coots dept.
deman1985 writes "InformationWeek reports that AOL has no intentions to budge on its use of certified email. The company today released a statement apparently in response to the vast amounts of criticism over the past week from consumers and various organizations. From the article: 'We believe more choices, and more alternatives, for safety and e-mail authentication is a good thing for the Internet, not bad,' said an AOL spokesman. 'Everything that AOL has in place today free for e-mail senders remains -- and will only improve.' The programs critics aren't so optimistic, but that doesn't seem to be hampering the company's plans. In a quote that could only be labeled short and sweet, AOL announced, 'Implementation of this timely and necessary safety and security measure for our members takes place in the next 30 days. Mark it on your calendars.'"
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Swaths (Score:5, Funny)
That's a pretty large swath of my calender... someone got another highlighter? Mine wore out around March 14th.
Re:IT'S NOT A TAX, ya idiots. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, I was under the assumption that AOL was an authority, and that they were imposing a charge of money to access their otherwise public service.
Of course, the 1b definition fits even without me being facetious.
Now, I'll thank you for hijacking a +5: Funny thread just because it's the first post to the article, simply because you're afraid that if it's any deeper into the comment tree no one will see it, or care about it.
Open-letter petition to AOL (Score:5, Informative)
Of course a mass-mailing organization opposes it (Score:5, Insightful)
The question would be whether AOL plays nicely. If they have a non-profit rate, does that mean that they WILL absolutely demand their inch of green? Or will they note that MoveOn plays by the spam rules and not block their emails? Will AOL extort that $20k a year even if MoveOn obviously isn't spamming?
I'm a little ticked that MoveOn is trying to pretend that they're fighting for the general freedom of Internet, lest AOL start extorting your grandmother to send baby pictures. In reality they're just interested in themselves. Rightly so, perhaps, but the cloak of hysteria bugs me.
Re:Of course a mass-mailing organization opposes i (Score:4, Interesting)
I really hope, AOL will charge those non-profit organisations the same as other businesses. Why should televangelists, corrupt political parties or other assorted whiny do-gooder have it easier to get to me? If a company tries to sell used condoms or recycled viagra, at least it tries to be productive.
Re:Open-letter petition to AOL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open-letter petition to AOL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open-letter petition to AOL (Score:3, Informative)
Dont SIGN. it's a great idea (Score:3, Informative)
Step1: anything that is not whitelisted by the receiver, and otherwise does not bear a stamp is by definition SPAM.
step2: (N
Slippery Slope (Score:3, Insightful)
Yawn. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
I belong to a public mailing list right now (and have belonged to others before). The lists are free, are typically over 3/4 lurkers and 1/4 active posters,
might seem a little aloof (Score:5, Insightful)
Mailing Lists (Score:2)
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:2)
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:3, Insightful)
Web hosting takes a hit as well. Hosting customers set their business up somewhere, and have all of their mail (apam and all) forwarded to their AOL account. AOL, apparently not bothering to check headers (to see that while the mail IS spam, the last hop h
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:3, Informative)
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:3, Funny)
The other day I was cleaning out junk and came across an old AOL disk I had kept. I should mention I am into retro-computers, and, THIS AOL coaster was a 5.25 floppy in ProDOS format. It is for AOL on the Apple II.
I was considering slappi
Re:might seem a little aloof (Score:4, Insightful)
In a free democratic society you vote with a ballot. In the free market you vote with your dollars. You can help stop both of these problems.
Typical AOL Product Manager Reaction (Score:2, Funny)
Cha-ching. (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be sorely tempted to say "no aol.com addresses" when people sign up for stuff. Just put a note on the signup page that says "due to AOL's policies, we can't guarantee that you will receive the email that we send to you, therefore an AOL.COM email address is not a reliable means of communication.
Re:Whatever (Score:3, Funny)
Manager-speak (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. That a classic example of manager-spreak. Lord, help them, they're being managed. You can bet the farm on that.
Not a "tax" (Score:5, Insightful)
Opt in, or die! (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words, Opt-ing and pay, or your email will be blocked. Spam kings willing to chip in would appear to be uneffected. Average joe mailing lists, kiss it good bye. Which beggs the question, why does anyone use AOL anymore?
-Rick
Re:Opt in, or die! (Score:3, Insightful)
Will they allow me to filter certified emails out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who pays AOL to send me a certified email has just got to be someone I don't want to talk to.
It's a Company, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a Company, folks (Score:2)
Re:It's a Company, folks (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's a Company, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a Company, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah ok, sure. Wake me up when SMTP is taxed by the government. Until then my mail server will happily send and receive mail.
Isn't it funny how... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>> Implementation of this timely and necessary safety and security measure for our members
Of course their motiviation is all about concern for the end-user. The fact that they will make money on every fricking email has no bearing on their decision to implement this.
Short and /sweet/? (Score:5, Funny)
"GO FUCK YOURSELF AOL" is also short and to the point, but far from sweet.
AOL want the "good ol' days" back (Score:2, Informative)
User whitelist (Score:5, Informative)
Re:User whitelist (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this a problem? (Score:2)
Well, it certainly can't get much worse. (Score:2)
uh
No AOL email addresses allowed. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have already started adding it to signup forms on my site (forums that require email activation for example). There is no way I'm paying to send emails to new users.
Of course, this could end up with AOL users having to PAY for signups on things like email lists and other subscriptions, that would otherwise be free.
Let the market correct this absurdity (Score:3, Insightful)
What goes around, comes around. As I previously suggested [slashdot.org], internet extortionists risk everything...
How many fools will remain with AOL when other ISPs start blocking their email?
Balderdash (Score:3, Interesting)
"Balderdash and piffle," replies Jennings. "Nothing's really changed."
First: piffle [google.com] means balderdash, doesn't it? What a bunch of tomfoolery and flimflam.
Second: sorry Jennings, something has changed. The FTC's CAN-SPAM law [ftc.gov], debated though they may be, allow that unsolicited e-mail can be sent LEGITIMATELY under certain strict guidelines. AOL's e-mail "tax" will potentially damage the ability of legitimate law-abiding businesses to legally market their products.
Third: what is AOL's definition of spam? What does this mean for nonprofits who legitimately send mass e-mails? What about politicians who spam [slashdot.org] -- will AOL let that through, or not?
Aol Has made ONE mistake here... (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to send me spam email, pay me.
Also, EVERYONE complaining about this is a spammer. They don't think they are spammers, but they are. If the recepients want you on their email, they will put you in their address book and you won't be charged a thing.
Re:Aol Has made ONE mistake here... (Score:3, Insightful)
You overestimate the typical AOL user
"Let Me Esplain" (Score:5, Informative)
AOL has made a series of poor choices with their email program/system, for years on end. Some highlights:
- They only display the email address of the person sending you email. You have to open the email to find out the name of the sender! (Shouldn't this have been fixed 15 or so years ago when AOL first started letting outsiders send email to their members?)
- If an AOL user wants to include part of your email in their reply to you, they have to copy and paste it themselves, there is no notion of inserting quoted text as with every other email program on earth.
- They put the "Report Spam" button right next to the delete button, and from the user's perspective it does the same thing: email disappears when you click it, with no warning. But on the back-end, AOL counts these against the sender, even if the person did it by mistake (since it is right next to the Delete button, this is very common).
- And the best of them all: plaintext emails to AOL members do not have URLs hyperlinked! They have to copy and paste the URL into the web browser in AOL, or the sender has to format the plaintext as a link, using A HREF, even though everyone ELSE that receives the email in this fashion will see this tag surrounding the URL. If you want everyone to have a nice view of your email and be able to click on the links, you have to format it as HTML.
Now here is where this email tax comes in. Right now, if an AOL member clicks on a link in your HTML email to them, they will get a warning that links are disabled, unless you are in their address book, or you are in the AOL Enhanced Whitelist. You get on this whitelist by having a clean record of sending a lot of email to AOL members, and not being reported too often as "spam." I.e. you're a company sending a lot of legitimate email.
In this case, they click on your links and they just work. If you're not on the enhanced whitelist, and you're not in their address book, they have to click on a "enable links for this email" button for EVERY EMAIL.
Now AOL wants to replace this enhanced whitelist system with the email tax system run by GoodMail.
The problem here is not safety or spammers, it's:
1. AOL's spam detection sucks.
2. AOL's email program sucks.
If they fixed those two problems, there would be no need for an enhanced whitelist or goodmail!
As for their line, "We believe more choices, and more alternatives, for safety and e-mail authentication is a good thing for the Internet, not bad..." Let me ask them, "So why are you dropping the enhanced whitelist?" That's not more choices, that's dropping one in favor of another... another that will provide you with some much needed profit.
I'm sure their motives are pure.
Everybody is missing the point of this service... (Score:3, Interesting)
AND THAT'S THE GOAL.
AOL has fallen on hard times recently. The "walled garden" isn't holding the users in like it used to. AOL users have come to consider that AOL = the internet, for the most part, and lots of them are using AOL as a more normal, but particularly expensive and annoying, ISP.
But that's not retaining existing customers. Once an AOL user finds out that signing up with a more traditional ISP is not only cheaper, but actually provides a far better service, then they tend to switch. AOL subscriber numbers have been dropping for ages now.
AOL wants to stop, or at least slow, that. And that's why they are going to this service. By degrading the rest of the internet to their users, they hope to make their walled garden seem better by comparison. If AOLers have problems with the internet services delivering email to them, then they will tend to blame the service itself, not AOL.
People complaining that this will make things harder for them are missing the point. It's supposed to make things harder for you. Hard enough to make you give up on supporting AOL users. This gives AOLers a bad impression of the rest of the network and keeps them in their walled garden.
Re:Overly Critical (Score:2)