AOL and Yahoo! to charge companies for guaranteed delivery of emails
Howard Lake | 9 February 2006 | News
E-mail service providers AOL and Yahoo! will shortly be charging companies on a per message basis in order to guarantee that emails send to customers on their networks will be delivered. The companies describe this as a contribution to reducing spam, but they both stand to generate considerable income from the system, including from charities, if it takes off.
The paid-for certified email system will be run by US company Goodmail which has already by tested by the American Red Cross for its online fundraising, according to The Times. Yahoo! and AOL say that as well as serving legitimate email marketers it will help their users by reducing the volume of spam they receive, as each message they receive will have a stamp of authentication.
Over the years there have been plenty of urban myths about email taxes, but this is a genuine development. While it goes against the original ethos of the Internet of all data being treated in the same way, it could signify the maturing of the email marketing industry. Spammers are unlikely to wish to pay up for sending millions of messages, whereas professional marketers might well choose to pay the minimal amounts to ensure that their targeted messages reach the intended AOL or Yahoo! recipient.
Advertisement
Rick Christ of US online fundraising advisers npadvisors.com is similarly sanguine. In his latest e-fund news he suggests: “if it helps block spam from other senders, and increases the “open rate” of your emails, then it’s a good thing.”
That said, the very low costs of email fundraising could now be challenged if the two major providers charge charities to use the system. Louise Cook, writing on the Fundraising Technology blog, raises the question of “whether AOL and Yahoo! will prove this isn’t just a way to make money by offering this service for free to charities and good causes”, adding “(in the UK too, please!)”. She is not optimistic though.
Nevertheless it seems there won’t be charges at first for charities. According to Dr Ralph Wilson’s Web Marketing Today (8 Feb 2006), “qualifying non-profits will not be charged through 2006.”
To be clear, the new system won’t stop email messages reaching AOL and Yahoo! customers sent by companies or charities that don’t pay to use the system, but equally there will be, as there is now, no guarantee hat they will be delivered.
What can you do now? At the very least you should ask Yahoo! and AOL subscribers to add your address or domain in their email address book, which should help messages from you pass through through the spam filters to reach them.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.