Internet giants to charge for email

Simon Lambert, This is Money

6 February 2006

 

INTERNET giants AOL and Yahoo will bring a halt to free email for all by charging customers for speedier delivery.

 

The internet service providers intend to introduce a system in America which will guarantee swifter delivery to senders who pay between ¼ cent and 1 cent (0.15p and ½p) per message.

 

If the scheme works in America it is likely to be set up in Britain and the rest of the world.

 

AOL and Yahoo say the new system is aimed at stopping spam and scam artists phishing for personal details with fake company emails.

 

But consumer groups have expressed concerns the moves will be a step towards a two-tier internet, with wealthy companies or individuals receiving better service.

 

The New York Times reported that AOL will launch its premium delivery service within the next two months, while Yahoo's plans are on still on the drawing board.

 

Both internet firms would still accept email from senders who do not pay for better treatment, but unpaid messages will be slowed down by spam filters.

 

The paid-for service would primarily be designed for companies, which send a large volume of emails and do not want them to end up in people's spam boxes.

 

Banks, online retailers and other internet-based companies would see costs rise substantially, as many customers use web-based email such as Yahoo and AOL accounts for personal transactions.

 

The service is intended to tackle spam by making it expensive to send messages. As well as clogging up the internet with spam, the free nature of email enables fraudsters to succeed in obtaining personal information by sending bogus messages.

 

By sending out a huge volume of fraudulent emails con artists can obtain enough details to make money from a tiny response rate.

Glad I have Gmail then.

Glad I have Gmail then.

I'm guessing they'll do it too, if people take to it from Yahoo and AOL.

I don't understand, does that mean I'll have to pay for my Yahoo! accounts? Or are they giving businesses a chance to pay for an EZpass through the spam filter?

I don't understand, does that mean I'll have to pay for my Yahoo! accounts? Or are they giving businesses a chance to pay for an EZpass through the spam filter?

Seems to me that there will be a "basic" and a "premium" email service.

Basic = loaded to the gills with ads

Premium = gimme money

I don't understand, does that mean I'll have to pay for my Yahoo! accounts? Or are they giving businesses a chance to pay for an EZpass through the spam filter?

The way I understood it when these sorts of plans were first proposed was that overall you really wouldn't wind up paying for anything. The ISP's will wind up handling it. What should happen is that each ISP in the business will start charging $.25 or so for each email it receives, if that email is sent by a reputable sender.

 

Once you get a certain amount of people on an ISP, you'll wind up probably almost averaging out in terms of cost. Some small, local ISP will probably send roughly the same number of legit emails to AOL as AOL will send to that ISP, so the cost to each one should be a wash.

 

However, if an ISP is hosting a spammer...the 15 million or so emails that spammer will send out will all of a sudden provide that ISP with a $3.75 million bill, at which point the ISP will either have to shut the guy down or pay up. The idea behind this is to make it so expensive for spammers to conduct business that they'll just disappear. It's good in theory. We'll see if it works in practice. I hope it does.

It was only a matter of time until someone tried this...

There is also discussions to incorporate attachments into that as well. Once the mechanism is there for charging, it's just a matter of time . . .

But consumer groups have expressed concerns the moves will be a step towards a two-tier internet, with wealthy companies or individuals receiving better service.

 

uhhhh, it is already like that. Compare dial-up to a T1 line.

 

not a big deal, like most things you get what you pay for.

uhhhh, it is already like that.  Compare dial-up to a T1 line.

 

not a big deal, like most things you get what you pay for.

 

Damn good point.

I'm guessing they'll do it too, if people take to it from Yahoo and AOL.

Isnt google 100% against charging people for things?

I have yahoo right now but I wouldn't pay a dime for it.

Isnt google 100% against charging people for things?

 

today they are... give them a few years when growth slows and they need to find a new source of revenue.