Yahoo, AOL to start charging for email delivery

Yahoo and AOL have announced their plans to start charging senders and optional fee to send mail directly to a user's mailbox without passing through junk filters, and so classifying it as a certified mail.

The two companies will certify the emails from companies which pay up to 1c for delivery and agree to a tough code of conduct. Millions of internet users hold email accounts with the two companies.

Yahoo and AOL have long filtered e-mail by searching for keywords commonly contained in spam and fraudulent e-mail. AOL also strips images and Web links from many messages to prevent the display of pornographic pictures and malicious Web addresses. Both practices sometimes falsely identify legitimate messages as junk mail, making life difficult for businesses that rely on e-mail.

AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes and will not have to run the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a special bulk e-mail box or strip them of images and Web links.

AOL and Yahoo are working with Goodmail Systems to implement the paid email program. Goodmail, of Mountain View, Calif., said it will charge from 1/4 cent to 1 cent per message, giving the biggest discounts to the biggest mailers.

Although it is being presented as a tool to fight spam, many critics see the initiative as a money-making ploy.