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Help me understand this someone. Someone told me it was advertised during the Superbowl. They want to charge companies to send newsletters, or charge the subscriber a penny an email or something. I can't make heads or tails out of it. I have enough problems with AOL. They gleefully block my newsletters all the time, for what I don't know. Apparently they don't like an ad or something. Here's a news release:

AOL & Yahoo Email Charges May Be Passed Along to Users
  The Service Roundtable, an Internet based alliance of small service businesses, announced that it may be forced to charge AOL and Yahoo users a premium to account for added costs resulting from charges for email delivery recently announced by the two companies.

GRAPEVINE, TX (PRWEB) February 8, 2006 -– The Service Roundtable, an Internet based alliance of small service businesses, announced that it may be forced to charge AOL and Yahoo users a premium to account for added costs resulting from charges for email delivery recently announced by the two companies.

“Our preference is for a ‘Net Neutral’ Internet,” said Service Roundtable CEO Matt Michel. “But if an Internet service provider is going to charge us to communicate with paying subscribers to our service, we have to collect the added charges somewhere.”

Michel agreed that spam is a problem, but rejected plans by AOL and Yahoo to charge senders up to one penny for each email delivered. He suggested either whitelisting or the use of more affordable companies like Bonded Sender. According to Michel, AOL’s plan would cost his small business hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Pay no attention to the paternalistic nonsense about protecting users from spam, viruses, and phishing. This is a money grab, pure and simple. It’s an attempt to establish a toll booth on the Internet and impose a private email tax scheme,” said Michel. “Refuse to pay and your private communications with your customers will be held hostage.

The Service Roundtable (www.ServiceRoundtable.com) has already alerted its members to the possibility that AOL and Yahoo users may be charged more if the company is forced to pay for email delivery. The Service Roundtable is a private business alliance of service contractors that uses the Internet to lower content delivery costs, passing the savings on to the small businesses it serves.




I must be dreaming. Right?