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AOL to Charge Senders for Incoming Email
pdclarry writes "AOL announced on January 30 that it will phase out its Enhanced Whitelist service in June in favour of Goodmail CertifiedEmail, which carries an as yet unspecified per-message fee. Until now, a mailing list gets on the AOL whitelist by following good e-mail practices, such as cleaning up dead addresses, making it easy for people to leave mailing lists, and of course not sending any spam. This is all going to be thrown out the window and replaced with the payment of hard currency to Goodmail. People who can afford to pay this fee will have the privilege of reaching AOL subscribers, others will end up in junk folders. Yahoo is expected to follow down the same path."
I wish I could charge AOL for sending me all those AOL CD's I get in the mail.
The following statement is false.
The previous statement is true.
Welcome to my world.
I never knew talking to AOL members was a privilege worth paying for.
Cthulhu Saves.
Bulk emailers on one hand and AOLers on the other? Let them have each other.
You Personally advocate a
( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(x) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
(x) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a fascist for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
They use it because they're middle-aged housewives who learned to use it 10 years ago and are threatened by change.
...at least, that describes the only person I know who still uses it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
> Why does anyone use AOL anymore?
Have you ever tried to cancel an AOL account?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Yeah, I have. I had to cancel 3 credit cards, move to a different state, and get a new identity. I now incinerate any aol trial cds I get.
Obvious answer: Because of their superior customer service.
...they just didn't pay you. They paid the marketing and development guys to make the CD's, they paid for the cost of the CD itself, the shipping charges, and the packaging. Not to mention the programers to make AOL in the first place. And you threw away their hard-paid-for product.
After all the effort they put into marketing it to you, the least you could have done was install the thing. Geez.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
You can have a veto on my car! Please! Veto means I'll get a new one to replace it, right?
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
which is exactly why you just forward all mail from the @aol.com to the @imnothandicappedanymore.com inbox, and put the @imnothandicappedanymore.com on your business card, and then just 'can' the @aol.com after enough time has passed to justify doing so.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
This is a good thing? I'd rather keep all people who would use AOL in one, easy-to-block domain!
I found the best way was to cancel my bank account, change my name and move to a foreign country. They've tracked me down twice but I filed off my fingerprints this time and had plastic surgery so I'm hopeful. They only ones worse are Girl Scouts at cookie time and Jehova's Witnesses. Those I've had to learn to live with.
<voice style='Godfather'>
"That's a classy email you have there. Real nice, you know? It would be a... shame... if anything were to happen to it."
</voice>
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I once argued with some JWs who arrived on my doorstep. I argued evolution until they looked at their watches. Then when they tried to leave, I brought up another issue and argued some more ... and more ... and more....
They never came back. Pity, I was just getting started.
Bitter and proud of it.