> The admins (who do this as a hobby) looked
> at getting on AOL's whitelist, but found the requirements too onerous.
>  See specifically bullet item 5 under E-mail Formatting Requirements:
> at http://www.postmaster.aol.com/whitelist/whitelist_guides.html.
> We are NOT going to put physical address & phone number of our admins
> in our email.

Some of the AOL instructions were clearly crafted with newsletters and other one-way communication in mind. I ignore them for discussion lists and AOL have never complained about that. Anyone can understand that I do not have the address and phone number of every person who might subscribe to one of my lists, and even if I did, it would be too much of a privacy intrusion to make just one ISP happy. I would rather disallow AOL subscriptions altogether than force people to disclose their home addresses. If I were you, I would just request the whitelist. I would be very surprised if AOL complained.

> <screaming rant on>AOL is run by idiots, who think their subscribers
> are even more stupid than they are. <screaming rant off>  Sometimes,
> they are even correct.

Actually, I don't think AOL is run by idiots. But they have merged with a company operating in an industry where profit margins are everything. I obviously was not involved in the boardroom discussions preceding the merger, but I imagine that a number of representations were made to Time Warner under the mantra, "content is king and the Internet is one more channel through which to sell your content." I guess this must make a lot of sense if you are a media executive with a limited understanding of the Internet. And when you buy the #1 ISP in the world, you expect to gain a pretty good foothold in that new channel, including any profitable commercial developments such as e-mail stamps and other exciting new ways to make money on something that used to be free. This, perhaps not in as many details, but this general direction and strategy, was part of the deal when you bought AOL for much more than it turned out to be worth in reality. So of course you expect AOL to deliver on that promise, or at least die trying. And there are quite a few big companies willing to pay by the message for guaranteed delivery, and serious money to be made if the rest of us let it happen. As soon as public company X manages to make money charging for received e-mail, all other public companies will be obligated to look into it to improve shareholder value, and within a year we might find that every ISP is doing that. So far, it has been a lot of talk and not much $$$ at the bottom line, and I hope it stays that way.

  Eric