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AOL Starts Pay-to-Send Email Service

Without any bells or whistles, AOL has changed the status for its "certified mail" plan to `go` this week, and started delivering pay-to-send email services. Goodmail CertifiedEmail service allows mass-emailers to bypass the AOL spam filters by paying a fee. The mail then reaches AOL customers directly into their inboxes. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes the pay-to-send model could leave nonprofits, small businesses, and other groups with increasingly unreliable service.

"Many groups suffer from what the Wall Street Journal called `spam filters gone wild,` and their email never reaches many on their mailing lists," said EFF Activism Coordinator Danny O`Brien. "With AOL`s system in place, AOL will be taking money from big companies to skip those filters entirely. If ISPs can make money for a premium service that evades their malfunctioning filters, we worry that they won`t fix those filters for groups who do not pay."

While the creators of "certified mail" claim that their programs help customers recognize legitimate worthy causes and vital banking mail in their inbox, the first pay-to-send mailing spotted by EFF was a promotion for Overstock.com. Overstock has every right to reach customers who signed up for their mailing list, but just because corporations have the money to pay for email delivery doesn`t make that mail more important than any other non-commercial mail.