February 23, 2006 Political Group Tries To Stop AOL's Certified Email Service By Antone Gonsalves Courtesy of Page 2 of 2 In adding a certified email service, nothing would change for users of AOL's free service, Graham said. The benefit to paying customers, however, would be guaranteed delivery of their email and all its content to a person's inbox, provided that person agreed to receive the email. Companies that send legitimate email today over AOL's network run the risk having the portal's spam filter strip the message of links, images and attachments. In addition, there's no guarantee the email won't end up in a junk box set aside for spam, Graham said. Steve Ratzlaff, vice president of marketing for Greyware Automation Products Inc., a Plano, Texas, provider of Web and email tools for businesses, sided with AOL, saying MoveOn.org was giving an inaccurate depiction of AOL's upcoming service, and was using inflammatory rhetoric to attract Internet users. "It's inaccurate in every respect," Ratzlaff said of MoveOn.org's position. The AOL service, provided through would be valuable to large companies that often have their brands hijacked by trying to lure people to bogus Web sites to steal passwords and user IDs. Phishers often disguise email as coming from such well-known companies as EBay Inc., PayPal and a variety of financial institutions. "Grandma's knitting circle passing out their monthly newsletter isn't getting phished," Ratzlaff said. Certified email services make it possible for well-known companies to send bulk emails that customers know are legitimate, Ratzlaff said. AOL and Yahoo Inc. announced in January their plans for pay-to-send services. Mail certified by the Web portals would contain an icon viewable from a person's list of inbox messages. The icon would authenticate the sender. AOL said it would launch the service within 60 days, while Yahoo said it would be available in the "coming months." MoveOn.org targeted AOL because it was more committed to its plans, Green said. "Yahoo was a little bit more tentative." AOL, in the organization's view, also has enormous clout in the email market. "As goes AOL, so will go the entire industry," Green said. "That's why it's important for regular people who care about the Internet to strike back now against AOL's email tax." In unveiling the service in January, AOL said it had signed up the American Red Cross, The New York Times Co. and the credit report company Experian. The announcement, however, was criticized at the time by some analysts, who argued that AOL and Yahoo should focus on making their spam filters better to avoid blocking legitimate email, rather than offering bypass routes for paying customers. E-mail This Story Print This Story Page 1 | 2 Get the latest Messaging news, product info, and trends every week.			Spyware And Adware Continue To Plague PCs Morgan Stanley Muddles Through An E-Mail Mess Ignoring E-Mail Is A Sure Way To Lose Business FTC Smacks Spammer With $900K Fine Want To Lose Business? Ignore Customer Email Researchers Warn Of Coming Tax Scams     Messaging Pipeline's Main RSS Feed     Messaging Pipeline's Blog RSS Feed Editorial and vendor perspectives The Six Flavors Of Windows Vista Microsoft plans to release a full six-pack of Vista versions, one for every taste. Which Vista will be right for you? Hope is Not Enough When It Comes To Compliance Three Ways To Authenticate E-Mail And Stop Spam Wikis In The Workplace Review: Google Desktop 3 Vendors are now talking about how collaboration can be improved by integrating video with messaging applications. They're even talking about adding live TV to mobile phones. How far do you go before it becomes a bandwidth and business productivity drain? Video is a great idea     13% Video is fine but there needs to be size limits     25% It's never used for anything really productive     38% I draw the line at live TV     25% In search of messaging products? Check out our brand new Product Finder for a directory of groupware and collaboration tools, security products, archiving solutions, and more.