Fw: AOL and to become less friendly to non-commercial/social/technical mass mail

[Guest guest]

forwarding this email

does this effect us?

 

 

wrote:

Since many of you use and AOL, I found this very important, and it may

affect weather or not you continue to get email from xxxx.

 

For years now, AOL has maintained a " whitelist " for systems (like ours) who meet

certain characteristics and also are the subject of a low number of complaints.

It's become less predictable recently, since AOL defines some types of

complaints, like embedded URLs, that override the whitelisting and result in

mail getting blocked anyway. But it is still needed to dramatically improve the

odds that mail will actually get delivered.

 

However, AOL has announced that they will begin phasing out their whitelist in

favor of a commercial product that is essentially equivalent to making the

sender buy " e-stamps " to have their mail accepted. With this approach

(GoodMail's CertifiedEmail), commercial " good citizens " can help defer the cost

of their mail to the receiving ISP. is expected to follow suit.

 

But... what about non-commercial services such as ours? Apparently, we have the

choice of either paying to send our rs' requested mail with confidence,

or not paying and taking our chances on whether or not we are seen as sending

too much, too often, etc.

 

Speaking for myself... I'm really dismayed about AOL's move... but I find

's even more pernicious, because, well, let's face it -- they're not going

to charge postage to Groups senders, are they?!

It amounts to an under-the-table tool to convince people to move their mailing

lists to ... definitely unfair competition.

 

Please complain loudly -- to AOL for disenfranchising non-commercial " good

citizens, " and to for combining the same unfortunate action with the

questionable side-effect of using it to boost Groups.

 

 

 

Relax. Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

 

 

 

Relax. Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!