Political rivals unite against AOL, Yahoo e-mail plan

IDG News Service - The two sides of the U.S. political spectrum have found an issue to unite them: Free e-mail.

On Tuesday, a group of nonprofit organizations and small businesses will announce the formation of a coalition aimed at putting a stop to plans by America Online Inc. and Yahoo Inc. to charge fees to mass e-mailers. The coalition, expected to be launched at a press event in New York, will be sponsored by digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and it will include two political adversaries: the liberal MoveOn.org and the conservative RightMarch.com political action committees.

"We have been putting together a rather large coalition of groups from across the spectrum," said Cindy Cohn, the EFF's legal director. "They are mainly nonprofit or political groups or small business concerns.... They're all people who can't afford to pay to get their message across."

The coalition wants the two Internet giants to abandon plans to adopt an e-mail certification system developed by Goodmail Systems Inc. that could relegate some e-mail to second class status, Cohn said. "I think they need to abandon this plan," said Cohn. "The ISPs' view that they can auction off preferred access to my e-mail box is really wrong... It's not the ISPs' to sell."

Yahoo and AOL first signed on to use Goodmail's CertifiedEmail service last October, but the service has come under scrutiny as the two companies have come closer to deploying it. With CertifiedEmail, senders agree not to send unsolicited e-mail. They pay a fee of between one-fourth of a U.S. cent and one cent for their messages to receive preferential treatment in AOL and Yahoo in-boxes.

AOL is expected to begin using the service "in the next month," and it will be available to Yahoo users "shortly thereafter" a Goodmail spokeswoman said.

Earlier this week, MoveOn.org and RightMarch.com argued that the bulk e-mailer fees would ultimately harm the free exchange of ideas.

"The very existence of online civic participation and the free Internet as we know it are under attack by America Online," wrote the liberal MoveOn.org in its alert, sent to members Wednesday.

MoveOn.org has started an online petition calling for AOL to abandon the service.

AOL has no intention of backing away from CertifiedEmail, which will be rolled out within 30 days, according to AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. Like the U.S. Postal Service's Priority Mail, the service simply gives customers another choice in how to send and receive messages, he said. "We are absolutely intent on using this as an additional tool to protect the sanctity of the e-mail experience for our members," said Graham.