from MoveOn.Org: Breaking News: AOL Censors Email Tax Opponents? AOL may be censoring any emails to AOL customers that mention our www.DearAOL.com website. Can you email a friend who uses AOL to see if this is true? ---------- Dear MoveOn member, We have received numerous complaints that AOL is censoring any email to AOL customers mentioning our website to stop AOL's email tax ? www.DearAOL.com. MoveOn co-founder Wes Boyd decided to see for himself if it was true. "I tried to email my brother-in-law about www.DearAOL.com and AOL sent me a response as if he had disappeared," said Boyd. "But when I sent him an email without the www.DearAOL.com link, it went right through." Can you email a friend who has an AOL account to see if a message with www.DearAOL.com goes through? Then, send without the link and see what happens. Let us know at: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1635&id=7321-3057087-1i58AA2doaAtwNIHqbR0MA&t=2 If true, this proves the point of our effort to stop AOL's email tax: AOL cannot be trusted to put the free and open Internet above its own self-interest. Left to their own devices, AOL will put its own self-interest ahead of the public's interest in a free and open Internet every day of the week. AOL's days of saying "trust us ? we won't hurt free email when we implement a pay-to-send system" are over. Thanks for all you do. ?Eli Pariser, Noah T. Winer, and Adam Green Thursday, April 13th, 2006 P.S. We've got to spread the word quickly. Forward this note about AOL's censorship to your friends. Ask them to join our petition to AOL that has already been signed by over 350,000 people: http://civic.moveon.org/emailtax/?id=7321-3057087-1i58AA2doaAtwNIHqbR0MA&t=3 P.P.S. Here's a helpful editorial from the Silicon Valley-based San Jose Mercury News explaining the problems with AOL's email tax: (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1522) ___________________ Paid e-mail will lead to separate, unequal systems Free systems will become neglected Mercury News Editorial Sun, Mar. 05, 2006 Ever since the Internet left its free, non-profit and government roots for the commercial world, fears that its gatekeepers would set up tollbooths at every possible juncture have simmered across cyberspace. AOL recently caused those fears to boil over. The Internet giant announced that in the next 30 days it would launch a certified e-mail system that would guarantee delivery for e-mail senders who paid the equivalent of an electronic postage stamp. Those who don't pay could face a greater risk of having their mail tripped up by AOL's spam filters. The furor was quick to erupt. A disparate coalition of individuals and groups ? including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MoveOn.org, Gun Owners of America, the Association of Cancer Online Resources, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame ? warned that it won't be long before everyone will have to pay for e-mail delivery. Small non-profits would be particularly affected. And the use of e-mail would decline, diminishing the power of the Internet to promote free speech. The coalition has called the AOL system an e-mail tax. AOL pooh-poohs these fears and angrily rejects the notion that it's levying a tax on e-mail. Unlike taxes, the certified e-mail is entirely optional, and free e-mail will continue to work, the company says. Its plan is no different from the post office offering regular, priority and overnight mail at different rates. What's more, the certification system is necessary to protect AOL users from phishing scams such as the ones that proliferated after Hurricane Katrina, the company says. Each certified e-mail will come with an electronic ``token'' that will reassure recipients it is from a legitimate source. But there are reasons to be concerned with AOL's plan. The problem is not with e-mail certification itself, but rather the potentially perverse incentives in the particular certification system chosen by AOL. Indeed, AOL is not the first to jump onto the certified e-mail bandwagon. Already, programs with names such as Bonded Sender and Habeas certify senders for a fee. Their e-mails are guaranteed delivery into in-boxes of Microsoft's Hotmail and other Internet service providers who work with those programs. But two things stand out about AOL's program, which will be operated by Goodmail, a company based in Mountain View. Unlike other certification programs, Goodmail will share the fees it collects with AOL. And rather than charging a set fee for certifying senders and an annual subscription, Goodmail's program is based on a per-e-mail fee. (All have special, discounted rates for non-profits.) What's wrong with that? The revenue-sharing agreement is likely to work as an incentive for AOL to move as many senders as possible to the paid system. At a time when Internet firms are scrambling for new sources of revenue, the temptation would be to neglect the free e-mail system, whose reliability would decline. Eventually, everyone would migrate to the fee-based system. There would be no way around the AOL tollbooth. AOL says that's nonsense. The amount of money it would collect under the program is very modest, and the company promises to plow all of it back into improving spam filters and stepping up anti-phishing efforts. To its credit, AOL, like other large e-mail providers, has a track record of fighting spammers and phishers through both technological and legal means. But if the revenue from the program is so small, why doesn't AOL announce it will forgo the fees ? a decision that would help silence critics? AOL won't say. What's more, the promise of new revenues could lure other ISPs to set up a Goodmail tollbooth on their systems, making it even harder for senders to avoid certifying their mail. Yahoo has already said it would work with Goodmail, albeit on a more limited basis than AOL. The charge per e-mail is also worrisome. The costs of certifying a sender are largely fixed. So the only reason to keep charging a sender who's already been vetted is to turn e-mail into a cash cow. There's nothing wrong with companies making money. But there's no denying that making money on the back of e-mail risks diminishing the appeal and utility of e-mail as a communication tool. It's clear that with a few minor changes, AOL could mollify its critics and alleviate many of the real concerns raised by its plan for certified e-mail. It would be wise to do so, rather than barrel ahead with a plan that could threaten the free and open nature of the Internet's killer application. New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/