Wednesday, February 15, 2006

RED HERRING | Yahoo, AOL Email Move Blasted

"Yahoo and America Online�s plan to charge businesses for guaranteed delivery of their commercial email could potentially leave the Internet giants exposed to lawsuits for invasion of consumer privacy, industry experts said Tuesday.

Yahoo and AOL have said that they plan to charge businesses anywhere from a penny to a quarter of a cent as a fee to deliver bulk messages to their email subscribers (see AOL, Yahoo to Charge for Email). The fee is being labeled as an electronic postage stamp that guarantees compliance with anti-spam legislation. It would also certify the sender's email as authentic.

But industry experts said the plan is �dangerous� and �dead on arrival� because it violates the democratic principles of the Internet and will have little impact on spam, the biggest problem that email users face right now. What�s more, it�s likely to prompt a huge consumer backlash as users wouldn�t be able to control what kind of emails they receive."

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