AOL Offers Olive Branch to Non-Profits

Hoping to quell an increasing wave of criticism over its Certified Mail program, AOL announced Friday plans to offer qualifying non-profit organizations two ways to ensure their messages are making it to its members.

The services would be provided at no charge to both the sender and recipient, and would offer comparable terms to what AOL is offering commercial senders. The Dulles, Va.-based ISP said this would also allow its users to trust that the e-mails they receive are authentic.

A group of nearly five dozen organizations and individuals, including Moveon.org, Tim O'Reilly, Chris Pirillo, Oxfam America, and the Democratic National Committee signed an open letter to AOL late last month accusing it of creating a "two-tier" Internet.

The group called the program the creation of an "e-mail tax," and said it was the beginning of a closing of the doors to an open Internet. "A pay-to-send system won't help the fight against spam - in fact, this plan assumes that spam will continue and that mass mailers will be willing to pay to have their emails bypass spam filters," it claimed.

Non-profits would have the option to use the company's enhanced White List option, which would ensure delivery to AOL subscriber's inboxes. While it would not be marked as "certified," it would be handled in a similar manner.

A second option calls for AOL to pay the non-profit's flat rate sign-up costs to be authenticated by a third-party accreditation service. AOL said it was currently in discussions and would have testing completed in a month, with launch occurring within three months.

"We want to make sure that not-for-profits who depend on timely communication with their members get all of the privileges of this powerful medium," said Charles Stiles, AOL Postmaster.

"Our announcement today guarantees that every certified not-for-profit will get the same benefits as private-sector companies that have decided to utilize Goodmail's Certified Email system," he continued.

Additional services for non-profits were in the works, and the company said it would have a final announcement available within 60 days. But in the end, AOL seemed to stress that it would never charge non-profits for any of these services, which they did not have to do in the past, either.

"There will be no requirement, ever, for not-for-profits who deliver email to AOL members to pay for email certification and delivery," Stiles said.