Are you ready to start paying for sending email?

[markfh]

http://news.com.com/Postage+is+due+f...l?tag=nefd.top

[bullsparade]

Its not a big deal.... first off I dont subscribe to either one of those lousy services. I also dont consider someone doing business from one of those services very "professional". Domain names are cheap and so is hosting, if a legitimate business cant afford a hundred or so dollars a year to have their own domain and email services then its not my problem.

The other aspect of this is, its the business that has to cough up the extra dough. Just like the mailers I recieve by way of snail mail. They pay for bulk postage to send me and all my neighbors their ads...I dont have to pay to recieve their "junk mail".

Its important for people to realize that email is not a big deal. Yes spam is a costly issue in terms of bandwidth BUT we are already past the hump on that one. Just a few years ago anyone could send spam, now with so many filtering systems in place...its only the very large spammers who manage to get through and even they constantly have to reconfigure their tactics. The article sounds like a typical brainstorming idea for a few companies to trying to reel in some lost revenue due to other services...AOL is floundering (cant imagine why anyone would ever have used them) and has been for many years. Yahoo is trying to gain some leverage in the marketplace against other portals and is scambling for alliances.

Thanks for the article but its kind of like the urban legend a few years back where they said the post office was going to start taxing email...LOL

[jeffkohn]

I also dont consider someone doing business from one of those services very "professional". Domain names are cheap and so is hosting, if a legitimate business cant afford a hundred or so dollars a year to have their own domain and email services then its not my problem.

I think you misunderstand. It's not a matter of businesses using AOL/Yahoo for email, it's a matter of businesses wanting to send email to customers who are using AOL/Yahoo. Just because you're not using AOL and you're professional enough to have your own domain and mail server, what are you going to do about your customers that are using AOL? Tell them to change providers so you can email them? Good luck with that....

[LoungeLizard]

I for one will be one of those who say "I sent you the information, talk to your e-mail company about why you're not receiving it."

They claim that it is similar to USPS classes, well, that's not true. The USPS charges the sender for the transportation and does not sort it depending on anything (check your real mail box - SPAM filter there?)

It's just a trial balloon and it'll get popped before you know it. What they have to do is stop the SPAM and prosecute those who don't follow the law.

[JamesB]

I dont like that idea. I dont want any company sending me stuff unless i specifically ask for it.

lucliky I dont have AOL or yahoo for email so it wont affect me

the basis for this is not for personal email sending, but for companies to pay a fee to ensure their email is delilvered to your inbox.

I learned something new the other day reguarding snail mail junk.

if a company sends you something with a pre-paid envelope to send back their application or what ever, just include random junk inside the envelope (like carpet cleaning coupons)and dont fill any thing out. if we all start wasting their time and money maybe your snail mail junk will decrease a little.

James

[Mike G]

Better yet, tape the postage paid envelope to a brick and take it to your local post office, they will deliver it and the reciever is charged for the weight.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

You misread the whole article! This deals 99% with LARGE VOLUMNE Mass Emailers and not the small business person who may at times might send out a 100 or so e-mails. They are trying to cover the costs of "outside mailers" sending tens of thousands or more emails a day while also putting a squeeze on spammers.

One positive of this will be less websites requiring you to get onto their e-mail lists to get to parts of their sites. If they will have to pay to e-mail you everyday with stuff that you generally deleate anyway they may consolidate their mailings to weekly sendings.

I have one e-mail account, that has been picked up by spammers, that may get up to 300 e-mails a day with maybe 15-25 that are relevant. I use this when I am forced by a site to register to get onto the site-many newspapers are that way now, so having a system other than spam filters that may toss more of the junk into the junk file is good in my book.

But THERE ISN'T GOING TO BE A SYSTEM TO CHARGE OR TAX THE SMALL BUSINESS E-MAIL USER FOR A LONG TIME. In fact they never said that they wouldn't process the e-mails they just said that they may put them in an inconveinent spot. So you may soon have a function at AOHell or Yahoo that requires you to rate an e-mail such as accept all from sender, refuse all from sender, accept from sender but put in revue box (instead of trash folder) and that you will be required to rate every e-mail before deleating them the first time from a new senders address. (this would become a pain in the backside dealing with SPAM).

[brad]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

But THERE ISN'T GOING TO BE A SYSTEM TO CHARGE OR TAX THE SMALL BUSINESS E-MAIL USER FOR A LONG TIME. In fact they never said that they wouldn't process the e-mails they just said that they may put them in an inconveinent spot.

My business emails (which are 100% of the time confirmation about a purchase they JUST MADE) are already put in an "inconvenient spot," by those automatic "bulk mail" filters.. so you'll forgive me if I don't see this as one more hurdle to jump for my small business. And I don't believe for an instant that this will be targeted only at the LARGE businesses. Problem Spam doesn't come from a large business.. Problem Spam uses open relays all over the Internet to make it look like they are from individual users so that they get through today's existing filters.

Spam cannot be filtered by blocking senders or IP addresses. Spam can only be filtered using a combination of an intuitive language filter and whitelist. POPFILE is an excellent tool for this.. I have an accuracy rate of about 99% and rarely miss a legitimate email.

I would NEVER trust some third party to decide what mail I want to see and what I don't... but some people will... and those people deserve better filtering, not a Whitelist/Blacklist under a fancy name.