Goodmail Fails to Charm Gmail
Much to the chagrin of AOL, Google broke its silence on Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail system last week and said that it would not be implementing any services that would compel senders to pay in order to ensure their e-mails’ delivery. This essentially makes AOL Goodmail’s sole chief advocate in the eyes of the mass public and, consequently, the whipping boy for all who oppose the Time Warner unit’s alliance with Goodmail.
Yahoo! also indicated that it would be using Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail system. However, as Yahoo! Postmaster Miles Libby said, the major difference between Yahoo! and AOL’s plans with Goodmail is that Yahoo! is only going to designate it “for transaction e-mails only.”
“AOL is increasingly looking like the black sheep of the industry as respected titans like Google distance themselves and state for the record that they will not follow AOL’s lead into a world where the big guys can pay to bypass spam filters,” said Adam Green of MoveOn.org, which is a political activist group.
Google’s announcement calmed the fears that began to grow when both AOL and Yahoo! had indicated that they would be teaming with the certified e-mail service, especially when Google Vice President Jonathan Rosenberg was on Goodmail’s list of strategic advisors. Instead of relying on charging senders to reach Gmail inboxes, Google has opted to place the onus of filtering their e-mail on its users.
Google Corporate Communications’ Eileen Rodriguez intimated that this would not be such a difficult task given Gmail’s “superior spam detection system that gives users ultimate control over the messages that are filtered into their spam folders.”
The tables have now turned, and it would appear that Google, not AOL, is the e-mail service provider that has started a domino effect that could influence the industry. AOL is now left out in the cold, and has garnered the negative attention of the many opponents to Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail system.
However, there are supporters of Goodmail’s service, and they have voiced their disapproval of Google’s decision. Esther Dyson, who is the editor of Release 1.0 for CNet Networks, thinks a world without Goodmail is impractical. “It’s idealistic and unrealistic in a world where there are bad people; you need to spend money to protect yourself. At the moment, the costs have to be borne by the recipient. Really you want to charge through third parties [such as Goodmail] who can work together with ISP.”
“People who are anti-Goodmail say, ‘Let’s have an intelligent design for anti-spam systems.’ I believe in evolution: there will be a lot of different attempts, and some will work and some won’t, and the best will thrive,” Dyson said.
Google says that they agree with this, though they see different approaches to the same end. “Authenticating e-mail so people are assured of the sender’s identity is a good practice that Google supports, and there are several existing techniques,” said Rodriguez.
Since being the target of criticism for its decision to work with Goodmail, AOL has tried skirting around the issue by admitting that there are many tools that must be used to battle spam and phishing.
There are those who think that AOL should cut their losses and completely ditch their Goodmail plan, including Reflexion Network Solutions’ David Hughes, who is the CEO at the anti-spam solutions provider. “If this scenario was truly accidental,” Hughes said, “then AOL needs to look at this as a star-crossed sign that they need to abandon this plan.”
Hughes is glad that Gmail will not be utilizing Goodmail’s system, saying that “E-mail is a very personal thing. (AOL) should have understood this very personal, democratic, egalitarian aspect. And I think that’s where they blew it. Power should be in the hands of users.”
Google seems to agree, and is intent of finding other ways to battle spam and all the other problems pervading their e-mail inboxes.
Source:
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