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AOL Is Selling Access To Your Inbox (continued)
Almost a week later, that story has made it to the top of techmemeorandum, largely due to Saul Hansell's story in the New York Times about this issue.
In the week since I posted about this issue, AOL has clarified the situation and said it will not phase out its enhanced whitelist service. That's great news.
I have a vested interest in this issue by virtue of Flatiron's investment in Return Path, where I am on the Board. So you should take everything I have to say on this issue in that vein. You may also want to see what Matt Blumberg has been saying about this issue on the Return Path blog.
I am pleased that this issue is getting aired in the media and the blogs. It needs to be discussed. Some people feel that by forcing commerical mailers to pay, you can sort the wheat from the chaff and spammers will not be able to afford to send mail anymore.
This is a complex issue. It involves commercial mailers, ISPs and webmail hosts, and the customers they serve. If this was just about commercial mailers compensating ISPs and webmail hosts for the mail they send, then "paid stamps" might make sense.
But we have to think about the consumer in this discussion. Consumers want email and when they subscribe to an email list, ask for a verification email for a purchase, ask to be notified when something goes on sale, etc, they want to get that email. When their ISP forces the merchant to pay for delivery, some merchants are going to say no, others are going to cut back on what they send, and others are going to stop offering email services if they can't justify the cost of providing them.
Until now, mail on the Internet has been free. That's allowed a tremendous number of email delivered servies to flourish. Unfortunately it has also allowed spam to flourish. As a longtime investor in email companies like Yoyodyne, Bigfoot, and Return Path, I've been around these issues for a long time.
And I don't believe that money is the answer to solving the spam problem. I think we are on the right track already with sender authentication, emerging reputation services like Return Path's Bonded Sender and Sender Score and those from other companies in the market, and with more intelligent spam filters and whitelisting solutions.
If AOL and others want to offer a paid stamps program as a compliment to these other approaches, that is fine with me. But mandating paid stamps as the only solution, which is what was announced last week and now seems like an miscommunication, is a bad idea. I am glad everyone is coming to that conclusion.
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» Email gives way to RSS from Polarman
Fred Wilson says on A VC, Until now, mail on the Internet has been free. That's allowed a tremendous number of email delivered servies to flourish. Fred, please change the business models from email to RSS. It's time Email gives [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 5, 2006 6:44:24 AM
Posted February 4, 2006 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
I'm afraid that you have it wrong, and I'm sorry to hear that you've invested in something that won't work.
Remember, people already pay a fortune for spam protection without knowing it, because a large portion of their ISP costs go there. It's funny to hear people calling it a profit for AOL. Do you know how much money AOL spends doing spam filtering on your behalf?
Try a thought experiment: imagine that AOL gave the postage they collect to charity rather than using it to defray their staggering internal anti-spam costs. Then at some point we would say that they solved the spam problem.
And the US Postal Service is indeed a model. The reason you get a limited, manageable amount of junk mail, rather than a spam-like flood, is because of the small cost to junk mailers.
Posted by: abc | Feb 5, 2006 7:55:51 AM
it's sad that someone who posts a comment about the best way to fix the email business chooses to leave a name like "abc" and an email adress like a@a.com
Posted by: fred | Feb 5, 2006 8:03:31 AM
Mr. Wilson,
I have been reading your blog for over a year now and I am a fan (thanks for the free advice, who doesn't love free content?).
With regards to the email exchanges (which looks to be a moot debate now (AOL keeping Enhance White List)).
Don't companies like Return Path, Cheetah Mail, and Skylist etc, pay the ISP/ESP's to get their clients email through (in the form of email servers etc)?
I might be totally wrong, if I am strike this post from seeing the light of day. But if those companies are giving money to the ISP's and buying them email servers aren't the ISP's just cutting out the middle man for w/ regards to deliverability?
I know that Return Path/Cheetah Mail offer tons of other service to optimize email campaigns etc. And I highly suggest utilizing them if you have the money to (email management ain't cheap).
Any way, the email and the name are real. Thanks so much for your wisdom sir-
John M.
Posted by: John M. | Feb 6, 2006 2:23:48 PM
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