Goodmail Hated by Left & Right

The plans by Yahoo and AOL to utilize the services of email certification firm Goodmail have brought together two bitter political rivals to denounce the service.

RightMarch and MoveOn hold diametrically opposite positions in the political spectrum. To bring these two rival political action committees to a common ground usually requires a staggeringly horrifying event taking place, like the launch of New Coke.

This time, it’s the proposed fees for delivering bulk email to opt-in recipients that MoveOn and RightMarch find difficult to swallow. Computerworld reported how a new coalition sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation will bring the two together along with other interested groups.

This coalition opposes the prospect of being forced to pay for unhindered delivery of its messages to subscribers. The article noted how senders in the program would have to pay one-quarter of a cent to one cent in exchange for “preferential treatment” of their messages.

The article cited comments from an EFF officer on the issue:

“We have been putting together a rather large coalition of groups from across the spectrum,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director with the EFF. “They are mainly nonprofit or political groups or small business concerns… They’re all people who can’t afford to pay to get their message across.”

“I think they need to abandon this plan,” said Cohn. “The ISPs’ view that they can auction off preferred access to my e-mail box is really wrong… It’s not the ISP’s to sell.”

Billionaire George Soros backs MoveOn, while RightMarch president William Green noted in the report how how RightMarch spends “thousands of dollars a month on e-mail delivery services,” so neither group is exactly hurting for money.

Both AOL and Yahoo could launch Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail service in the spring. The article quoted AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham in reporting AOL will begin using CertifiedEmail in 30 days. Yahoo’s launch would come after that, according to Goodmail.

Jason Lee Miller covered the AOL-Goodmail issue in early February; you can read about that here.

About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.