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.
posted by NPAdvisors.com @ 10:55 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This comment was received via email from a subscriber to our newsletter:
"I've appreciated your emails for a few months now. Good opinions, knowledge and sources, however this message has me rethinking my subscription. I'm sure you've combed the web for information on this and run across a lot of intelligent opinions. Sure there are also a lot of the ubiquitous "evil empire" knee-jerk responses, but I don't think this is one of those things that can go both ways.
"It is bad for business (Yahoo! and AOL even) How can Goodmail really distinguish between who should pay or not? I doubt they will tell the difference between me writing to my dad about his latest visit to the eurologist, and an ad from a spammer selling something that takes the swelling out of the prostate, and puts it somewhere else ;)
"It is bad for innovation. The spirit of the web is being violated here. When it was a rumour in the nineties that the gov't was going to tax email, we were all up in arms. The free flow of information on the web is why it is still a valid medium.
"I can go on, and really those points are not much different than what you would find from the EFF, Gizmodo, RedHerring, etc. I'm deeply concerned about this plan of theirs, but I have my doubts that it will get off the ground. I am even more concerned that you would advise nonprofits who are already strapped for cash to pony up. You are treading on dangerous ground for someone with an organization called NPAdvisors. I sincerely hope to see a correction from you, or at least a better explanation than your newsletter."
Rick responds:
Thanks for your post. No matter what I end up believing, I hope you’ll continue to subscribe to efund. After all, if only people who agree with me subscribe, how will I learn anything?
I, too, will eagerly await details, but as I understand it this would not apply to individual emails, but only bulk emails. Also, I don’t think it threatens to reduce in any way what AOL and Yahoo! are doing now. In other words, on bulk emails to their subscribers who are not on their Whitelists, they don’t show links or images. The new proposal is a way for bulk mailers who subscribe to Goodmail (and, I presume, are vetted by Goodmail with respect to validity of sender) to get their messages through with the images and links.
I’ve tried to find out how nonprofits can get on AOL’s whitelist, and they won’t tell me how to do that. This could be the only way for nonprofits to get bulk email through to their AOL and Yahoo! subscribers intact.
I’m not sure how it’s bad for innovation. I’d like to hear more from you on that. As for an email tax, I think that was always urban legend. There have been attempts to make internet retailers collect local and state sales tax, as catalog mailers do, but that wouldn’t apply to nonprofits. And, there is a difference between a tax and a fee imposed by a private company like AOL. I’d oppose a tax on emails but I respect AOL’s right to do what they want with their service. Their subscribers can decide whether this is what they want to pay for or not.
An article at ClickZ on this subject:
http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/buzz/article.php/3584231
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