Opposition to AOL's 'Email Tax' Growing

An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that opposition to AOL's proposed 'Email Tax' that would create a two tier email filtering system is growing. DearAOL.com, representing such organisations as the EFF and Craigslist, has written an open letter to AOL asking them to reconsider. "

Comments

I call BS

[Kelson]

Meanwhile, charity groups, e-zines, and other legitimate free mailing lists that people sign up for will be screwed.

How?

No, really, how?

Where has AOL said that people who don't sign up for this list will be blocked?

This is a whitelist that bypasses filters, not a whitelist that is the only way to get through. Bulk mailers who don't pay up will still be able to send to AOL. Their mail will be subject to more scrutiny, sure. It'll be subject to as much scrutiny as... well, as it is today.

And as I recall, the Certified Email whitelist isn't a matter of "pay and we'll let you in" so much as it's "pay and we'll do a background check to see if you're a spammer, and if you pass our criteria we'll put you in the fast lane." Why, that sounds like Bonded Sender and Habeas. Remember the controversy here on /. when Hotmail started using Bonded Sender two years ago? How exactly did that play out?

But looking at it logically like this gets in the way of a good knee-jerk reaction.