California State Sen. Dean Florez announced last week he is drafting legislation against AOL’s implementation of the Goodmail CertifiedEmail program.
The move follows protests by liberal activist group MoveOn.org and others that AOL’s plan has the potential to result in a two-tiered e-mail system. The groups contend that marketers who pay will get their e-mail delivered while organizations that don’t will risk having their e-mail blocked as spam.
“It seems to me that AOL is setting a horrible precedent here,” said Florez, a Democrat. “The whole idea of Net neutrality gets wiped away, and we are left with an Internet of haves and have-nots.”
AOL’s program will allow e-mailers certified as non-spammers by Goodmail to bypass spam filters and have their e-mail guaranteed to be delivered with graphics and links intact along with a “trust” icon. E-mailers will pay an unspecified fraction of a cent per e-mail for the service.
Apparently Florez doesn’t understand that companies like Habeas and Return Path also offer services allowing e-mailers pay to have their e-mail certified as safe so they can have easier access to people’s inboxes. Will he regulate them out of existence, as well?
Florez is also calling for the creation of a section of California law dedicated solely to the regulation of the Internet.
Yes, that’s just what we need, an entire section of the California code devoted to Internet law. Better yet, let’s fly Utah’s legislators to the West Coast to help California’s legislators draft a slew of new Internet laws.
Then we can wipe commercial e-mail off the planet once-and-for-all by drafting laws that combine Utah’s overbroad and ignorant attempts at regulating e-mail content AND California’s historical revulsion for information-based marketing.
Florez’s anti-certified e-mail bill—if it gets drafted—should be a doozie.
