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02.07.06
Goodmail Is A Bad Idea
 By
Rich Ord
Goodmail Systems announced that AOL and Yahoo are going to implement their pay-to-play
email authentication system.
With the Goodmail service AOL, Yahoo and eventually numerous ISP's would charge
permission based newsletter publishers a fraction of a cent per email in excange
for guaranteed delivery into a subscribers in-box. AOL has stated that this will
ensure that a mailers images and links are not disabled. The sales pitch is that
this is a better way to minimize spam and dangerous phishing emails.
And what exactly would publishers be paying for? Simply the right not to have
their email publications distorted and made useless to subscribers by removing
images and links. Paying a third party in order not to have my publications messed
with seem a little bit too much like a Sopranos episode to me.
As publishers we need to ask ourselves, does AOL have the right to distort our
publications and damage our brands unless we pay? AOL Postmaster Charles Stiles
told DM News, "You know how important [links and images] are for people for their
branding, so it is easy for recipients to recognize brands and remember that they
have signed up for the newsletter...". In essence, AOL knows they are harming
legitimate publishers brands ... but they now have a solution, pay us and we won't
damage you.
Our newsletter subscribers asked to receive our emails. If an ISP takes on the
service of offering email accounts, there is an expectation by the consumer that
the ISP will not alter their email. An altered email deligitimizes a publishers
brand and can cause the consumer to falsely report it as spam. AOL's Stiles told
ClickZ, "If they get a message from a sender that has images and links enabled
one day, and another one the next day where they're not, they tend not to trust
that so much, or think there was an error. It sends an unclear message to the
consumer,".
Exactly ... but is it fair to require legitimate publishers to pay every ISP in
the world to make sure their brands aren't harmed?
So what is the plan here? Is it for all the major ISP's to sign up for a single
companies authentication service? Are publishers going to have to kick back to
Goodmail for every email they send? And I forgot to mention the real motivation
of ISP's to use Goodmail ... they get a cut of the fee. Anti-spam is the selling
point but new money is what is truely driving AOL and Yahoo.
What AOL doesn't seem to realize is that their paying subscribers will simply
leave if they can't get the email that they want. In the end only a fraction of
publishers will pay ... thus only a fraction of free newsletters will be delivered
without alteration to AOL email accounts.
As an AOL customer, don't I have the right to get newsletters unaltered that I
subscribed to?
Goodmail has an admirable plan and if most ISP's adapt this it could mean an end
to spam and phishing ... but at what cost? Possibly the end of free email newsletters,
free customer updates and worst of all ... the elimination of a consumers right
to receive email that they chose to receive.
Maybe it's time for a few million more AOL and Yahoo email users to switch to
GMail!
About the Author:
Rich Ord is the CEO of iEntry, Inc. which
publishes over 200 websites and email newsletters.
Rich also publishes his blog WebProBlog
which focuses on internet business and marketing trends. |
