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A new class of e-mail will be a hit with both senders and receivers. A new certification system—a sort of Good Housekeeping seal of approval—guarantees recipients that messages are safe to open. For a quarter of a cent to one cent per message, legitimate e-mailers greatly boost the chances that recipients are actually seeing their messages. From Goodmail Systems, the certification makes sure that messages automatically clear spam filters and assures recipients that the e-mail is on the up-and-up, not a scam and from a sender who takes precautions against viruses.
AOL plans to start clearing certified messages in a few weeks. Yahoo will follow shortly afterward. Nearly half of all e-mail recipients in the U.S. get their e-mail through one of these two services. The biggest use, at least initially, will be for transactional messages sent by banks, brokerages and attorneys: billing and overdue-payment notices, announcements on stocks, ticket and purchase confirmations and so on. The system will probably also be used to deliver legal papers and other critical missives now typically sent by Certified Mail via the U.S. Postal Service. Down the road, online retailers and other direct marketers are likely to take advantage of the mechanism to raise the odds that their messages are being opened and read by potential customers. Similarly, media services delivering paid subscription content may find it economical to ensure delivery of their products.
Nearly 30% of U.S. e-mail users say they won't open a message from any financial institution because they're not sure whether it's authentic, according to Goodmail. "People want to know if the message they get is really from Citibank," says Goodmail cofounder and chief executive Richard Gingriss. "Far too often it's not."
Nonprofits choosing Goodmail's service will get a price break: a reduced rate of four-tenths of a cent per message. Recipients pay nothing for the service—all fees will be picked up by the senders, with Goodmail and e-mail service providers sharing the revenue.
The optional service won't affect the transmission of regular e-mail. AOL will continue to take applications from businesses to be on its free white list of approved nonspam senders. The difference between the white list and paid e-mail? The white list helps get senders only through volume filters—the kind that stop e-mail that is sent in massive quantities. But it doesn't protect from other types of filters that look for keywords, message length and so on. CertifiedEmail will get through those as well.
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