Goodmail?
February 6th, 2006
Wired, via the good ol’ AP, reports today that Yahoo and AOL “plan to introduce a service that would charge senders a fee to route their e-mail directly to a user’s mailbox without first passing through junk mail filters.” By the way, it’s called the “Goodmail System.”
And they think that they’re doing their users a favor.
They think that if they make sure the company who sends the mass email is legit, then it’s not spam. Via the handy Wikipedia, spam is “the abuse of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk.”
Making sure the company is a real one doesn’t mean it’s not spam. But hey, I’m sure Yahoo and AOL will make a quick buck while filling up their users inboxes with unsolicited messages. Just another example of how the majority of soulless mega-corps are keeping their eyes on the almighty dollar at the expense of their “valued” customers.
Are they going to ask permission from their users to implement this?
Yeah, right.
Other posts by Spike.
Chris says:
This “feature” is suppose to only apply to those companies whose customer base has already agreed to receive such communication. I don’t this it’s all that evil. It’s a sure fire way that company firewalls/spam filters would not prevent, say a credit card bill from being caught. What if you get email alerts from your bank when your account is close to being overdrawn and a spam filter prevented that message from being delivered and the next thing you know, you’re in the red. Bottom line is that if this only applies to people that have already agreed to receive such communication, it can’t hurt.
February 21st, 2006 at 10:29 amIan McKee says:
Yes, bulk emailer will have to assure Goodmail that all the people receiving email have opted in. BUT I dont know is how they police this - I would favour the bulk sender posting a significant bond (eg $1 per email sent) which is returned provided it generates less than an X% complain rate. If the mailing breached that, then the sender would forfit the entire bond! Now would’nt that concentrate the mind of bulk emailers! However I also agree with Spike that this does feel more like “bad profit” scheme for AOL/Yahoo at the expense of customer experience
February 21st, 2006 at 10:29 am