An update on the AOL pay-per-message issue. I have given a round of press
interviews today and it looks like there is going to be a lot of coverage
today and tomorrow. AOL have backed off on their plans to phase out the
(free) whitelist by June 30, but it seems clear that their long-term
direction remains pay-per-message. I was surprised, to say the least, to
read the following in a recent article, in which I was quoted about the
monopoly situation that AOL's decision would create:

> [Eric Thomas] said the main problem is that AOL is only using one
> technology supplier for its new certification plan, leaving Goodmail in a
> position to become a monopoly. 
>
> "Once the system is in place, nothing would prevent Goodmail from raising
> prices to increase profits," Thomas said. "Higher certification prices
> would lead to lower e-mail volumes and reduced operational costs for AOL,
> so they would be unlikely to complain about any such increases."
>
> AOL's [spokesman] Graham said this was a hang-up Thomas and L-Soft would
> have to deal with.

Well, I am not ashamed of having a "hang-up" about monopolies.

At this point, I have very little faith left in AOL's long-term plans for
the existing whitelist. There has been a downpour of bad press, they have
adjusted their position to control the damage, but industry concerns about
the single-sourced nature of the certification are seen as a hang-up that we
all need to get over. The long-term plan is still to make us pay
ridiculously high fees for the privilege of not having our mail tossed in
junk folders where subscribers will not see it.

I think we need to react by creating an open standard for e-mail
certification, something that could be implemented rapidly and that could
support the creation of low-cost or even free (community-run) certification
services. And the good news is that this can be done through a very simple
extension of DomainKeys. Just picture the DomainKeys we have today, but with
the public key stored at the certification company, rather than at the
sending company. Same checksum algorithms, same overall structure with a few
minor changes, and you get all the benefits of DomainKeys plus all the
benefits of certification and reputation checking. That open platform would
allow anyone to offer the service at any price, and it would work with any
up to date mail software. Goodmail could continue to use its proprietary
platform, although I suspect that it wouldn't have the same market
penetration as the open design, but that is the drawback of proprietary
designs. Nobody would be locked out, and everybody would win (except of
course the monopolists).

  Eric