Ok, i found out some more information about that whole "AOL/Yahoo charges for email" ruckus going on. As expected, i was wrong.
Here's what i found out from the guy responsible for implementing it. This is what was sent to BoingBoing and EFF in reaction to their posts. i'll note there's not been a retraction yet.
i'd like to provide some clarification about Yahoo!'s plans for testing the Goodmail certified mail system.
Our implementation will be limited to "transactional" email messages such as bank statements and order receipts, as stated in this release, Phishing attacks frequently mimic these types of messages. By highlighting the real transactional messages, we think users will have a better chance to avoid the scams.
Our delivery policies for non "certified mail" messages will not change. We agree that email is a great medium for knitting enthusiasts, bowling leagues, political organizations and families to communicate to one another. To make Yahoo! Mail the place you want to read them, we need to deliver the messages that you want and value to the place that you want them — the inbox. Similarly, we need to (and will continue to) deliver the messages that *you* don't value to your spam folder. If we don't, people won't choose to use Yahoo! Mail.
Protecting our users from abuse is a top priority here and we'll continue to innovate and explore new anti-spam and security methods. Goodmail's reputation and accreditation service is a complement to email authentication. As you are well aware, we are major proponent of email authentication, having authored DomainKeys, we chose to make DomainKeys available royalty free to the industry, and are currently working with the IETF on the DKIM standard.
As you point out, the best solution is to empower users with the information to make better, safer choices, and that's exactly what is happening here.
Miles Libbey
Anti-Spam Product Manager
Yahoo! Mail
So, just so were clear here, the billing structure is put in place for those companies that send transactional type mails (e.g. PayPal account statements, eBay billing notifications, Amazon.com receipts, etc.) The "pay for" emails are simply highlighted.
Your letters to Mom and Dad are not affected
There, i apologize to the mail folks for jumping the gun on this. i'm an idiot, but then anyone who knows me knows that.
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Cory Doctorow2006-02-09 10:18:48Exactly how can Goodmail tell the difference between "transactional" email and everything else?
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jrconlin2006-02-09 10:25:17Oh, I dunno. Maybe because it works by highlighting the mail from authorized subscriber MXs? Maybe because it looks for known patterns in the mail? (Do you really send emails to your parents telling them that their account with you is overdrawn and they need to log into your server to adjust it? And after all they did for you.) Yes, I agree that having a general email tax is bad. This is not a general email tax. It's targeted at a very specific group. The only folks that legitimately should be annoyed about this are folks that send out transactional emails like banks, financial services, mainstream stores, etc. Granted, since the mail isn't being blocked (only allowed through general spam filtering with a note highlighting that it's trusted) it's the same as getting an SSL key.
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jrconlin2006-02-09 13:03:17you are not an idiot Anne Marie
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Justinpie2006-02-09 13:35:20Looks like I'm going back to telegrams-- oh wait.
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pmp2006-02-09 15:02:51Uhh... I think you mean Affected. Are you gonna charge me a nickel for sending this?
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jrconlin2006-02-09 16:15:44Why yes Paul, Yes I do. That explains the constant feeling I was being stalked by a nun with a ruler all day.
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Alice2006-02-09 16:16:06Wow a quote from Cory, are you hitting the big time JR? Honestly, if a quarter of a penny per message guaranteed that all of the email I send was read and not picked up by a spam filter, I'd be for it. But that's not what this is about, and I realize that.
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jrconlin2006-02-09 17:51:23You bet Alice. I'm hitting it like a bug on the windsheild of an 18 wheeler. Yep, my 15 minutes will be due to the Internet realizing it's out of wiper juice.
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Richard M.2006-02-22 14:10:20Ditto for me on Cory's earlier question. Also, in addition to all the free speech and Internet culture implications of this move, it exemplifies a continuing bias toward the sender's needs and priorities. In this model, if senders pay, their mail gets through, regardless of whether the receiver actually wants it. Why can't individual users have their own whitelists? That's the best kind of "certification" I can think of. Another option is SpamArrest's verification procedure. Anything that puts the opt-in decision in the hands of the recipient rather than the sender is a good thing. The Goodmail model stinks.
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jrconlin2006-02-22 16:23:56No, not quite. The problem is that phishers use a very specific format for most of their attacks, (e.g. a phony message from ebay regarding your paypal account). What this approach does is say "Ok, ebay/paypal/wells fargo/etc., if you don't want to go through Yahoo!'s phish-trap rule, pony up some cash per email. Yahoo then adds those servers to some whitelist file adds some human monitoring and users that are getting legitimate notifications about bills and account information get their messages. This isn't a "get out of jail free" card for Bob's discount Viagra farm to start filling up your mailbox, and even if it were, other non-phishing related spam traps would be fired. I'll also note that it's my understanding that even if it were, your personal rules would never be bypassed, meaning that you could boot your bank's emails all day if you wanted. This is basically setting up a corporate whitelist for all the folks that don't know what a whitelist is or would never bother to maintain one (there's a lot of them). Personally, I'd be more pissed if I were some financial group since now I've got to pay to send out email. As stated, yeah, if this was a global thing, I'd be first in line with the torch and pitchfork, but it's not. The releases and the note from Miles pretty much spell out what this is.
