Perspective: Why taxing e-mail senders is a bad idea

Earlier this month, America Online announced the upcoming launch of a pay per e-mail service from a company called Goodmail.

Simultaneously, AOL announced that it would phase out its Enhanced Whitelist, a service enabling responsible senders of commercial e-mail to get their messages reliably delivered to AOL users.

Although AOL has subsequently reversed course on the Enhanced Whitelist, the news sparked an outcry in the industry and mainstream media as the message to commercial senders was: If you want to get your e-mails delivered to your AOL customers, you have to pay a tax to Goodmail. More importantly, it raised serious questions about the future of consumers' control over their e-mail in-box.

Putting a hefty tax on e-mail senders is diametrically opposed to Internet culture and U.S. values regarding freedom of communications. Consumers expect that when they give a vendor permission to send them an e-mail, it will be delivered promptly and without molestation by their e-mail service provider. Are those expectations deteriorating in light of the Goodmail announcement? The short answer is yes.

The good guys should get their e-mail delivered. The bad guys shouldn't.

If a consumer requests to receive e-mails from a vendor who does not (or cannot) pay for Goodmail services, those e-mails may no longer be delivered or may be delivered in an altered state that renders the e-mail illegible. Suddenly, consumers who requested e-mail and are paying for the e-mail service are relinquishing control of their in-box to a private entity.

So why exactly does Goodmail get to decide what does and does not get in my in-box? If I want my rate alerts from E-Loan and the company doesn't pay Goodmail--do I continue to get these e-mails? If I do, will I be able to read them without their images being altered? Some commercial senders who pay Goodmail will have little trust icons in the AOL user interface. Does that mean all the other e-mail in the AOL in-box is not trustworthy? If Amazon.com signs up for Goodmail and therefore has to pay a bunch of money, does that mean I'll be paying more for that DVD I'm planning to order?

The commercial e-mail space has had its share of obstacles in recent years, but through Can-Spam legislation, best practices and industry authentication standards, legitimate senders have made significant strides in learning how to effectively communicate with their customers via e-mail. The impact of spam has been mitigated as consumers have learned to manage the diminishing amounts of junk mail appearing in their in-box.

The industry is trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. The good guys should get their e-mail delivered. The bad guys shouldn't. A good guy is a reputable company that sends e-mail to people who signed up for the e-mail and continues to want to get that e-mail.

Goodmail would argue that the marginal economic cost of an e-mail tax will drive senders to adopt better practices. That's like saying sending a juvenile delinquent to San Quentin prison will reform the child.

What commercial senders really need is help improving their overall e-mail program (list quality, permission practices, sending infrastructure, content checking, opt-out processing, delivery tracking, reputation monitoring, authentication adoption, etc.). Penalizing senders will not help them improve their practices; they'll just have less money and resources to spend on actually improving their overall e-mail program.

The good news in all of this hoopla? We all love e-mail and are passionate about its ongoing health and well-being. But the message from the industry and public reaction is loud and clear.

E-mail is a critical business communications medium, and senders must have the unfettered ability to reach their customers reliably. Consumers also have a right to expect that their e-mail providers will make best efforts to deliver e-mail from legitimate senders to their in-box, regardless of the sender's participation or nonparticipation in any particular vendor's program.

Biography
Des Cahill is CEO of Habeas, which sells technology, for businesses, that certifies legitimate e-mail senders.

More Perspectives

[CharlesStiles]

Disregard for the Truth?

Des, the bottom line is - your commentary simply lacks the facts and the truth. The absence of both is exactly what has led to much confusion over the past two weeks. Certainly, AOL bears some responsibility for this - for not communicating this crisply and directly from the get-go. But we have responsibly, and responsively, been reaching out for the past two weeks straight to get out the truth, facts, and correct vision of what this means for email and for AOL. I think, given your competitive stance vis-a-vis Goodmail, much of what you say is to be expected; but you don't have to get the essential facts wrong to be a good and fair competitor.<br /><br />As you should well know, Goodmail announced in October, 2005, not earlier this month, that it had signed a deal with AOL and Yahoo! to deliver authenticated email from accredited senders under a program known as CertifiedEmail. Your statement about the enhanced whitelist is simply inaccurate. The AOL whitelist is a service ?enabling responsible senders of commercial e-mail to get their messages reliably delivered to AOL?. The enhanced white list is an operational component that comprises a very small subset of the white list population.<br /><br />The reference of Goodmail being a tax is no more accurate than when anyone else made that same analogy. This is an optional, premium service unlike any tax that you or I pay. Furthermore, AOL users don?t give up control of their inboxes; they retain full control over control what they do or do not want to receive. While I agree with your statement that consumers want to receive those messages that they have signed up for (who could argue that?); our initiative does nothing to affect this. Instead, it emphasizes those messages that we know to be safe and trustworthy. Something I think your company would be interested in especially given the lack of exclusivity granted to Goodmail Systems. <br /><br />Frankly, I find your reference to the ?molestation? of emails disturbingly inappropriate and completely without merit. AOL does not alter the contents of a message; however, we will affect whether images and links are displayed by default unless the user chooses to override our recommendation. We recognize that images play a significant role in offering additional email functionality but they also are a key component of making phishing scams so devious.<br /><br />By allowing images and links by default for those senders in a user?s address book as well as those mailers that pass accreditation and use email authentication, we are providing a higher level of protection for our users. Does this make non-certified messages untrustworthy? Absolutely not, among my non-certified messages will be letters from my friends, family and colleagues as well as those that choose not to certify their messages for whatever the reason.<br /><br />We have achieved a great deal over the last three years and our users have received 75% less spam as a result. But we still have a looming and ominous problem on the internet today and that is phishing. By providing a mechanism that allows consumers to easily identify messages that are safe, at no charge to them, we are taking a step in the right direction.

[rarpsl]

Charles Stiles' Spin Doctoring

Charles Stiles claims "AOL users don?t give up control of their inboxes; they retain full control over control what they do or do not want to receive." This is not true since my desire to receive, lets say, "Mailing List X" and my informing AOL of this fact is of no use if AOL blocks receipt of Mailing List X at their Internet Gateway under the pretense that it is SPAM. So long as AOL prevents a mass email message (which mailing list messages amount to since each individual message lists a number of AOL addresses as recipients) from entering the AOL Email System, there is no message for me to accept/reject.

[jasonnet]

Umm. Can you exagerate more?

I think someone has already pointed out much of the incorrect or misleading info in your posting.<br /><br />I'm no fan of AOL. I think their anti-spam policies and technology leave a lot to be desired. Although they claim 75% reduction in spam, I as someone that needs to reach a handful of AOL users, have had imense problems getting on their white list and have had many important notes apparently deleted by their filters. This has cost my users at AOL and my organizations money and will eventually cause attrition of AOL users. This new mechanism, although surprisingly imperfect, at least provides a step in the right direction. They do for example need to get more than just GoodMail involved for example.<br /><br />I will point out one more thing. You do state that people that can't afford the cost of this or can't manage to pass GoodMail's process are stuck. Given AOL's overly aggressive anti-spam policies that is somewhat true. Although it should be pointed out that they are no more stuck than they were before AOL's change as long as AOL's filters don't become more aggressive. Additionally... enties that need to reach their users/customers/members can still use RSS/Atom feeds. This approach is low cost and gives users a trivial opt-in/opt-out mechanism.<br /><br />Anyway... I applaud AOL for their first step, but they need to do better.<br /><br />J.

Black Hats, Grey Hats, but no White Hats

The issue of effective spam control has always<br />been stopped by companies like LL Bean, CitiBank,<br />and the other so-called "legitimate" businesses.<br />Their agenda, as codified in the Can Spam bill,<br />is to put the Viagra people, porn peddlers, and<br />other low-life out of business so that THEY can<br />send you junk e-mail. The Fortune 500 are quite<br />bitterly disappointed that the spammers and the<br />scammers have ruined such a promising media.<br /><br />The companies which make anti-spam software and<br />certification services, etc. don't want spam to<br />go away, because it would be bad for business.<br /><br />AOL just wants to grab more money. They talk a<br />good game, but getting rid of the Whitelist<br />program sounds like a ploy to force everybody to<br />pay the goodmail tax.<br /><br />The consumers just want the e-mail that they want,<br />and none of that other stuff. Too bad that none<br />of the players in this game has the consumers'<br />interests at heart.<br /><br />For the record, I think that taxing e-mail might<br />be a good idea, IF THE MONEY GOES TO THE USERS.<br />If the money goes to AOL, forgettabouttit.

[descahill]

Timing is Everything.

I wrote the original story in this thread over a week ago. During the time lag beween writing and publication, AOL reached out to industry and to Habeas to clarify a number of points. So I think it is fair to acknowledge those points and reflect on their impact.<br /><br />1. The AOL Enhanced Whitelist (EWL) is being retained. Senders with best email practices will be able to get their emails delivered and images rendered at AOL organically, without using Goodmail's service.<br /><br />2. To be clear, the AOL Basic Whitelist is also being retained. There was never any discussion or announcement concerning any changes to the AOL Basic Whitelist. While it doesn't offer the benefits of the AOL EWL to senders (image rendering, improved delivery) it is an important tool for senders. To find out more, go to <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.postmaster.aol.com/" target="_newWindow">http://www.postmaster.aol.com/</a><br /><br />3. The Goodmail relationship with AOL is non-exclusive. AOL is open to working with other 3rd party certification firms, such as Habeas, to provide improved email performance to senders certified as utilizing best practices in email.<br /><br />4. AOL's original announcement of the potential diminuation of the EWL was not an AOL commentary on the effectiveness or security of whitelists - contrary to what Goodmail has publicly suggested. Indeed AOL always intended to retain the AOL basic whitelist and is retaining the EWL. Whitelists as an authentication mechanism are inherently secure. AOL's whitelists use IP addresses as a method of sender authentication. What AOL was noting was that the whitelists are only effective as the accreditation service which determines whitelisting eligibility. We are in agreement with AOL on the importance of a tested, scaleable and thorough sender vetting process to ensure whitelist effectiveness. We've invested a lot of time and effort in building out this part of our business in the past 3 years while working with hundreds of senders we've certified or rejected.<br /><br /><br />So what do all these developments boil down to? In a word - choice. Senders will have the choice of delivery and image rendering via organic improvement of their email practices or a pay per email model at AOL. In the future, senders may have more choices at AOL from other email accreditation services, like Habeas. Finally, whitelists are here to stay as a viable and important part of the fast developing email authentication and reputation ecosystem. This is all very good news. Senders should have choices in their email delivery and performance and it seems they will have it at AOL.<br /><br />As I stated publicly at the Cisco DKIM Summit on Monday (the day before my Cnet piece was published), it's been great seeing the passion of the debate as it?s a reflection of the passion we all have for email. But, as I also publicly acknowledged Monday, it's time to move on and focus on other more constructive things we can do to help repair and maintain email.

[Eric Thomas]

A different take on email vetting

This may seem incongruous, coming from the author of the infamous 'Goodfellas' press release, but I am in favor of a vetting system, with one caveat: there must be a choice of providers, with an open standard to foster competition and keep prices down.<br /><br />For some e-marketers, price may not be an issue, because they are already paying for deliverability services that may (or may not) become redundant if Goodmail?s model becomes widely adopted. Still, why pay more than you have to? And, for many people, the fees are prohibitive.<br /><br />My company, L-Soft, runs a modest ESP operation on the side of its software licensing business. The rumored Goodmail fees are several times what we charge customers today. I could be paying Goodmail as much as 15 million dollars a year to verify my reputation! I understand that this could make business sense for some senders. Nevertheless, this fee level is so obviously disconnected from actual costs that it cries for the introduction of competition.<br /><br />And fees are not the only issue. Goodmail only do business with companies headquartered in the USA, which means US companies will have preferential access to foreign AOL mailboxes. I expect that Goodmail and AOL will spend quite a bit of time in foreign courts.<br /><br />I see a tremendous potential for a new e-mail industry, let?s call it vetting. Businesses would be able to earn preferential treatment in spam filters, based on ?trust ratings? assigned by vetting companies. Open standards and competition would keep prices around 3-4 figures per year. Volunteer-run or sponsored vetting services would certify charities. The low fee would allow almost every legitimate message to bypass spam filters, which could then become more aggressive. Spammers would see their ROI drop dramatically and this could be the beginning of the end for spam. What?s not to like?<br /><br />Eric Thomas,<br />Founder and CEO, L-Soft