Here's a discussion we had last February: http://www.politechbot.com/2006/02/09/goodmail-and-politech/ -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Is AOL engaged in extortion? Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:19:36 -0700 From: Mark Saks <msaks@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> References: <45A5C985.9060304@private> Declan-- Don't know if this is appropriate for Politech, but here it is: I have not seen this discussed much, but I run a small community mailing list - only about 200 recipients, 40 on AOL -and AOL has dubbed me as a spammer, even though the only people I send to on AOL are those who want to get the community announcements I send. Apparently this is a common problem. While the solution is for those recipients to get another email, for some strange reason they seem reluctant to do so. But that is another issue. Then I found the website http://www.dearaol.com where 500 organizations and individuals are protesting AOL's new email "tax." It seems that if you pay them enough money, they will let you bypass their spam filters. In other words, their subscribers are prevented from getting the mail they want, but those who are willing to pay can spam them. Seems like extortion and racketeering to me, but I'm not an attorney. Anyone here think they might be prosecuted under the R.I.C.O. statutes?? Does anyone know anything further on this? Maybe it just needs to have the light of day shed on it on some national TV show to embarrass them enough. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Mark Saks, Tucson AZ msaks@private ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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