According to DM News AOL has reversed its decision to eliminate its enhanced whitelist but still plans to use the Goodmail service.
AOL told DM News, “We hope that people will slowly come off the enhanced whitelist and sign up with Goodmail.”
That statement is proof that the Goodmail decision by AOL has absolutely nothing to do with spam and everything to do with money. The AOL whitelist is handpicked by their email support staff and consists entirely of double opt-in publishers. If AOL has determined that these emailers are not spamming why is AOL encouraging them to sign up with Goodmail? Of course, the answer is money.
So over the weekend AOL began feeling the pressure from publishers and competing email certification providers such as Habeas. Can you imagine the outcry from paying AOL subscribers if 99% of their email newsletters, Amazon specials, and banking statements arrived with dead images and links? What would AOL tell their subscribers … that the emailer didn’t pay us to send to them?
So in effect, AOL email would be in a class by itself … a lower class where only metered mail could get through without alteration.
My guess is that AOL will soon reverse course entirely and leave it up to the government to someday tax email.
Read my previous article on this subject …
Rich Ord is the CEO of murdok which publishes over 200 websites and email newsletters.
Rich also publishes his blog WebProBlog which focuses on internet business and marketing trends.
