Ömer Köker,

United we stand, divided we fall.

I do not want any organization tampering with my personal mail. I, as a user, want the control to be able to accept or deny mail.

This "Goodmail" idea is just an AOL idea to make money off of spam. 
The spam mailers will find a way around it, as always.
It seems the biggest spam abusers have plenty of money to pay their way around it, or hire top notch hackers to get around it. 

In the short term:
AOL sees this as another way to squeeze more money out of the economy. Users already get charged for no ads in their pages and next they will also be charged for no mail.
Who wins in this idea? AOL. They get to charge the businesses mailing to their users and the users more.
AOL sees it as a win win.

In the long term:
Our economy is getting tighter. The "baby-boomer generation" is not going to be there to support it much longer.
All businesses including AOL will be begging for any mail they can get in the near future. 

In the end those who implement "Goodmail" and those who buy into it will be the losers.

Better filtering down at the user level is the practical answer. 
Why stay with an ISP who decides what mail you can receive.

AOL will re-think this if they are smart.


-----Original Message-----
From: LISTSERV site administrators' forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of A.Omer Koker
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 11:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: AOL-Goodmail deal: Good Mail or "Goodfellas"?

In addition to my professional roles I also help maintain couple of large non-profit organization mailing lists.  I hate spam, I don't do spam and I have been on the AOL whitelist for almost 2 years and since then have had
very good relations with the postmaster team.   

However if this 'goodmail' deal does actually get implemented I will actively NOT ACCEPT AOL subscription and furthermore send out an announcement through our electronic and physical mailing to suggest our members to dump AOL service all together.

I have aprox 45,000 people on my lists and reach close to 200,000 people.  I don't know if I can neither afford to or even if I could afford would want to accept such one sided action to partition the open internet into taxed segments. 

AOL is no longer able to ride shotgun based purely on its closed off content offerings as it did 10 years ago, I believe if enough parties decide to ignore and stop servicing AOL boxes, instead of them segmenting the internet we can effectively retire them and/or this decision...  

While certified email servers and spam filters are good tools to use in a war against spam what is suggested in the 'aol-goodmail' deal, pretty much an email tax, is unfortuantely arrogant and potentially an ill-concieved plan to create an additional revenue stream from spam instead of working towards providing a better service for their users.

Sincerely,


A. Ömer Köker          			            
[log in to unmask]
'Execution is the missing link between aspirations and results' 




> -----Original Message-----
> From: LISTSERV site administrators' forum 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric Thomas
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 11:54 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: AOL-Goodmail deal: Good Mail or "Goodfellas"?
> 
> L-Soft has  joined the growing  number of companies that

> protest against AOL's recent announcement  that it will phase out  its 
> Enhanced Whitelist service in June in favour of Goodmail 
> CertifiedEmail, which carries an as yet unspecified per-message fee. 
> In a nutshell, companies like L-Soft get on the AOL whitelist by 
> following good e-mail practices, such as cleaning up dead addresses, 
> making it easy  for people to leave mailing lists, and of course not  
> sending any spam.
> This  is all going to be  thrown out the window and replaced with the 
> payment of hard currency to Goodmail. People who can afford  to pay 
> this fee  will have the privilege  of reaching AOL subscribers, others  
> will end up  in junk  folders. Yahoo is  expected to follow down the 
> same path.
> 
> I have nothing  against certification as an additional tool in the 
> fight against spam. Knowing that message such and such genuinely comes 
> from its purported sender  can help improve the accuracy  of your spam  
> filter. I also understand that certification costs money, unless  
> sponsored by the government or by volunteers donating their time to 
> the cause.
> But I think per-message  certification  fees make  as  much sense as  
> per-click  SSL certificate fees.  I also find that the "rumoured" 
> rates that  have been mentioned in  some of the  press articles  are 
> totally out  of proportion with the service being provided. The  fee 
> is several times what providers currently charge  for the service  of 
> hosting the mailing  list, removing dead addresses, making backups, 
> etc.
> As an illustration, a typical hobby list would cost  on the order of  
> $500-1000 a year. An  active list could cost $10k or more  a year. 
> This  may not be  much for  the advertisement manager of a large 
> company, not  when compared to print adverts, but what about the rest  
> of us? I know L-Soft hosting  customers cannot afford the price 
> increase that would be necessary  to cover an identification fee of 
> five figures PER DAY.
> 
> And for many of us, this identification  fee is not even an option. To 
> be eligible for Goodmail accreditation, you must "have business 
> headquarters located in the United States or Canada." Foreigners need 
> not bother. You must also "have at least a 6 month mailing history 
> from [the] IP" address from which you are sending your  newsletter. 
> This of course makes it very difficult to switch  ISPs if you are  not 
> satisfied with the  one you are using. A new ISP means a new  IP 
> address, and Goodmail will then shut you down for "at least 6 months." 
> A nice 'protection' plan for the ISP, but a disaster for customers.
> 
> Anyway, here is a link to our  full press release, which has been sent 
> to major  publications today.  And  I  want to salute  the  courage of  
> the executives at hosting-only companies that have spoken  up and 
> protested, knowing full well that  they would  go out  of business  in 
> a  matter of months were  their access  to AOL and  Yahoo mailboxes to  
> be cut  off in retaliation. In  the post-Enron  era, this kind of 
> corporate  courage is very rare  indeed. I stand  on much firmer 
> ground,  as hosting is  only a side activity  at L-Soft,  but I  can 
> still imagine  what must  have gone through their mind before they hit 
> the send button.
> 
> http://www.lsoft.com/news/aol-goodmail.asp
> 
>   Eric
>