The new fees, scheduled to go into effect within the next 30 days, will charge between .05 and 1 cent per email message for mass distribution to AOL addresses. Yahoo also is considering imposing such a tax.
But while many acknowledge the fees will keep illegitimate businesses from spamming AOL customers, groups from the left-wing MoveOn.org to the decidedly right-wing Gun Owners of America have come out against the service.
In an open letter to AOL, Eli Pariser, executive director at MoveOn, said the email tax would give preferential access to people’s inboxes “while leaving people's friends, families and favorite causes wondering if their emails are being delivered at all. The Internet is a force for democracy and economic innovation only because it is open to all Internet users equally — we must not let it become an unleveled playing field.”
Pariser’s group, he said, would be charged thousands of dollars per week to email the several hundred thousand AOL users on the group’s mailing list.
A website setup to decry the tax, DearAol.com, includes a cornucopia of supporters such as Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark and the Farm Workers of America. The groups on the site represent roughly 15 million people.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, has gone as far as to call for a boycott of AOL should the tax take effect.
Despite the opposition, AOL remains steadfast in its decision to impose the charges.
“Mark it on your calendars,” Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman, said Tuesday.
Legally, AOL has fairly solid legs to stand on. Courts have historically ruled that email providers are not held to the same level of accountability as a government institution, and consequently cannot face lawsuits for free speech violations.
The system to be used by AOL — and likely Yahoo in the coming months — was developed by Mountain View-based Goodmail Systems. Richard Gingras, CEO of the company, has said users will welcome the service once it goes into effect.
“Neither AOL nor Yahoo nor any other email provider would ever do anything to impede the way regular email is delivered without message fees or email taxes,” he said.