Author: W B Hacker Date: To: exim-users Subject: Re: [exim] Protesting AOL pay to send email plan
Marc Perkel wrote:
> As many of you know AOL is contemplating a pay to send email plan.
*trim*
Let's be a bit more precise.
- all 'free' mail has a cost to send or receive, somewhere, born
by somebody, usually as part of an ISP service fee, or staff,
student, organization membership costs. Or something.
TANSTAAFL.
I don't see anything wrong with AOL charging their *users*
whatever they - and their user-community - are comfortable with.
But that is apparently not the 'plan'.
- from your citation:
> What is this all about? here's what the Electronic Frontier Foundation
> is saying about it.
>
> * Tell AOL To Drop Its Pay-To-Send Email Plan
>
> We're extremely troubled by AOL's plan to introduce a pay-
> to-send email system that will guarantee access to AOL customers'
> inboxes for senders who pay $0.0025 per mail to escape anti-spam
> filters.
AOL users may, or may not, see an increase in 'legitimized'
spam. IF [ any | enough] organizations choose to pay the fee.
Might AOL then also charge the *users* another fee to have the
now-legitimized spam once again filtered?
There is plenty of historical precedent: Micro$oft selling AV
and "security" tools, for example.
Big as AOL is, they might be well-advised to research the
tragedy of HMS Curacoa, 4200 tons of armor steel - which also
got crosswise with something far larger as a result of a poor
judgement call.
The 'smtp community' will sort AOL in due course, and no more
stop or slow down than RMS Queen Mary did.
