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AOL and Yahoo to Create Premium Email Delivery Services

7:30 am on February 6, 2006 | Category: Business, Web Services

In a move that brings the concept of a two-tier internet one step closer to reality, two of the worldâ€™s largest email providers have announced paid express delivery email systems.

Yahoo and AOL are both planning services that will give preferential treatment to companies willing to pay a small premium for each email sent. At a cost of 0.25 to 1 US cent, the email providers would guarantee faster delivery of the message, and ensure that it bypassed the recipientâ€™s spam filter.

AOL claims that such a system will make it easier for genuine companies to reach their customers in this dangerous era of spam, viruses, and phishing.

â€œThe last time I checked, the postal service has a very similar system to provide different options,â€ said AOL spokesman, Nicholas Graham, in an interview with the New York Times.

Many internet users, however, believe that the very idea of a premium email delivery violates â€œnet neutrality,â€ the concept of data being disseminated without preference or discrimination.

Unfortunately, offering guaranteed delivery to paid subscribers only could easily spell the end of free email as we know it. By becoming more like real-life postal services, email will lose the much of the unregulated quality that has drawn so many millions of users over the past few years.

When it comes down to it, this is little more than an elaborate extortion attempt by the big internet giants, which will severely hamper the webâ€™s status as a truly free medium. This shortsighted cash-grab has the potential to create big problems for both companies and consumers in the years to come.

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