Moveon Take Action on AOL!!!!! Stop AOL's Email Scheme!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

http://civic.moveon.org/AOLpetition/?id=6819-3066685-ugkdi475fLvZLRnOZnY82g&t=2

Dear AOL user,

The very existence of online organizing and the free Internet as we know it are under attack by America Online. We need to fight back quickly.

AOL just announced what amounts to an "email tax." AOL would sell access to your inbox to giant corporations—allowing them to bypass spam filters and get messages directly into your inbox with a special high-priority designation. AOL says this fee will help deter spam, but it will actually help companies spam you more efficiently—and it'll lock out online organizing groups that can't afford to pay the price.

Can you sign this emergency petition to America Online and forward it to your friends—especially those who use AOL or care about keeping the Internet free?


Petition statement: "AOL, don't auction off access to my inbox to giant corporations, while leaving my friends, family, and favorite causes wondering if their emails to me are being delivered at all. The right way to deal with spam is to put more control in the hands of users and to keep email free."

AOL is not used to massive citizen outrage. When thousands of AOL users sign a petition, AOL will begin to understand they face a huge customer rebellion. Everyone who signs this petition will be sent information on how to contact AOL directly as well as future steps that can be taken until AOL drops its new policy.

The big loser would be customers—whose email from non-paying senders would increasingly be marked as spam and go undelivered. AOL pretends nothing would change for senders who don't pay, saying their emails will still be "accepted." But this is an empty promise since "accepting" non-paid emails means many will be thrown into the black hole of a spam filter or "stripped of images and Web links" to the point of being unreadable, as reported in the New York Times.1

Another loser would be democracy on the Internet—which has thrived as regular citizens have been empowered to organize online, participate in civic life, and communicate with each other for free. If an "email tax" existed when MoveOn began, we never would have gotten off the ground.

Under AOL's proposed pay-to-send system, online organizing all across the political spectrum will suffer. Issue groups, charities, and other non-profits with large email lists will have to pay thousands of dollars for every email message sent. And AOL would get two paydays: one when you pay for your account and another when you're emailed by companies that bought priority access to your inbox.

Can you sign this emergency petition to America Online and forward it to your AOL friends?

[arcane1]

1. AOL's email sucks anyway

doesn't even include the original text in replies, and it's bloody 2006!!!


If I had AOL, I'd cancel it in protest of this asinine scheme

[RebelOne]

2. The below statement is incorrect.

But this is an empty promise since "accepting" non-paid emails means many will be thrown into the black hole of a spam filter or "stripped of images and Web links" to the point of being unreadable.

I am an AOL user and I know what happens to something the AOL filter considers spam. It goes into a span folder and you can easily access it right in your e-mail box. It is not stripped of images and Web links. It comes in exactly like all your other mail.

[mtnester]

3. I dumped AOL 6 years ago, and made sure my father and everyone else I

knew did too. I refuse to allow it to be installed on any work computer here, I delete the Icon on new installs, and intercept any and all disks via the mail.

AOL is nothing more than glorifed spyware, and more damn viscious if you ask me. It is harder to delete all traces of it than the dreaded MySearchBar or the stupid lingering crap from online gaming.

Once, back in the day (1993, 1994, 1995) it was better. No longer. (Course my online bills back then were damn astronomical...imagine now DU'ers if we were paying like we were then)

[MadHound]

4. Why in the hell are people still using AOL anyway

If there is a worse ISP service out there, I can't find it. AOL just sucks, from the top to the bottom, and shit like this simply add more emphasis on the "suck" part.

But for some strange reason, people continue to be attracted to AOL, just like moths to a flame:shrug:

[RebelOne]

6. People like me stay with it because I get a discount through AARP.

Also, if I switched, there would be about 300 people in my address book that I would have to notify about e-mail address change.

[stevietheman]

5. Note: Yahoo! is implementing the exact same policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/05AOL.html (free registration required)