AOL & YAHOO to charge for mass emails. I got this from my pet rescue

[napi21]

group. I am a volunteer for this Bichon rescue org. and it really does seem very unfair to charge charities for their emila notices! I know there's been some info posted to Du about this proposal, but this is a confirmation that it's REAL!

Oh man...ok, many of you have heard in the news in the past few days that AOL and YAHOO are planning to charge businesses to send mass mailings to their AOL and YAHOO members. This is not the hoax rumor that was going on a while back. THIS IS 100% TRUE. They want to charge from a 1/4 of a penny to a penny per email sent from any mass mailer. (That would be US.)

This morning at 10:00 A.M. a camera crew arrived at our home, here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and filmed the segment which is supposed to be aired soon on NBC Evening news.

We understand it will also be seen on MSNBC Cable news It may even POSSIBLY be seen on one of the TODAY shows on NBC. The camera crew told us that they seem to take segments from the NBC evening news for those other NBC news programs.

I was able to tell them who we are...SMALL PAWS RESCUE!!!...What we do, SMALL PAWS RESCUE RESCUES BICHONS NATIONWIDE!!! ....And why e-mail getting through to our AOL members is so important to us...that a Bichon's very LIFE may depend on it!

I explained how Small Paws Rescue (had to make sure I kept saying THOSE words! HAHA!) is an "opt in" subscription service only.

There are two steps for folks to get on our newsletter list. They have to sign up, and then they have to CONFIRM that they want to be added to our mailing list.

I told them that Small Paws never "harvests" e-mail addresses from other mailing lists. This is strictly prohibited by the SPAM laws, in place to protect you and me from receiving even more SPAM than we do.

If any of you are EVER added to anyone else's mailing list without your permission, please let me know and our attorneys will take care of it immediately.

I told the cameras that we are a not-for-profit charity whose members WANT our message to get to them and get mighty cranky if it doesn't!

I told them that people are going to be VERY upset with AOL and YAHOO if they end up charging charities like Small Paws Rescue to deliver e-mail.

About a third of our mailing list are members of AOL...about 2000 people, and about a fourth of our list have YAHOO as their servers.


http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3583051

I personally wouldn't ever have an account with AOL, but I can sure understand why many have their email with Yahoo! I've thought about it myself because THEN, if I change internet providers, I wouldn't have to change my email addy on EVERY damn account that I have. If you have accounts with either of these companies, or even if you don't, contact them and tell them they need to put some exceptions in their "pay for email" plan! If it's an opt IN program, theyneed to be exempt!

[astonamous]

1. Damn...I agree with you. I also work with animal rescue

and know that the mass emails that go out daily are very important to network people together. And not just animal rescue but all kinds of information. Damn...damn...damn!

[napi21]

2. Please contact AOL & YAHOO!!!

I have NO problem with anyone charging a provider to send unsolicited email! Maybe if they did that, all of us would get much less of this junk! But there has to be some exemptions!!!!

[RebelOne]

3. I think this is an opt-in thing. You pay only so that the mail gets past

the spam filters. I don't believe that you will be forced to pay. This only ensures that the mail gets into the e-mail boxes and not into spam folders.

[flamin lib]

4. As I understand it they will charge to GUARANTEE the delivery

of mass mailings to get past spam filters. If your email recipients are aware that they are on your list and have adjusted their spam filters accordingly there is no need to pay for the service.

I've been dealing with the spam filters for some time with a service I offer. The first email is a personal one from me and virtually always goes through. Following updates are generated from "that big computer in the sky" so I notify my customers in the first email to check their spam filter for the secondary address.