More overreaction to the Goodmail fees

I'm not surprised. If Moveon.org says "blue" I say "red." So I'm not surprised that Moveon.org has launched a campaign (dearAOL.org) to protest against AOL and Yahoo!'s plans to offer certified bulk email senders a way to deliver their messages intact (with links and images) to AOL and Yahoo! subscribers.

An article in today's New York Times explains how Moveon has built a coalition of the uninformed who believe the internet is free. It isn't. Ask any AOL subscriber. Or shareholder.

AOL and Yahoo! have said that the new plan will not change the way most bulk emails are delivered now. For anyone who isn't on their super-secret "enhanced whitelist," bulk emails are delivered, subject to spam filters, and usually without links and images intact. This is done to "protect" AOL users from porn, spam and phishing schemes. AOL users who don't want to be protected should get another connection and another email account.

I should, however, take Moveon's latest effort as comfort. Given their track record, AOL's and Yahoo!'s plan is sure to succeed.

Start paying to send emails? Maybe it's not a bad thing.

This week both AOL and Yahoo! announced that they will offer an enhanced delivery service to bulk emailers for a fee. (ClickZ article) If senders use a certain process, and pay a fee (up to one cent per email) then the messages will be delivered with links and images intact to AOL and Yahoo! subscribers without passing through spam filters.

While some are railing against the practice, we're not so sure it's a bad idea (nor do we think we could change it anyway).

Not that we're sympathetic to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like AOL and Yahoo!, but we understand a bit about their economics. Delivering all those email messages to subscribers is expensive. They save money anytime they can block one from coming into the system. And, if they can block the ones some subscribers might complain about anyway, it saves more money in the customer service and marketing budgets.

It won't cost a lot to nonprofits. If you have 20,000 AOL or Yahoo! email addresses it will cost you $200 or less (maybe much less) each time you send an email. If it helps block spam from other senders, and increases the "open rate" of your emails, then it's a good thing.

This is all part of a broader trend towards placing the burden of proof on the email sender. Again, it's a good thing. At NPA, we take the same global view of the internet as the credit card companies do: the potential is virtually limitless, and yet the biggest threat to the continued growth of internet fundraising and communications is the loss of trust by the recipient.