Tired Old Goodmail Regroups, Becomes Net Neutrality Issue

Two year's ago there was a bit of a media frenzy surrounding Goodmail's apparent arrangement with AOL; if you don't recall the exact players you might remember national news coverage of the in spring 2006. Well, Goodmail's back with a new CEO and a new plan: certifying video email.

Goodmail LogoCurrently, many email providers filter the complexities of code that make video in email possible, sending those files automatically the spam bin. The idea is the same as last time, with that video caveat: senders pay between one-tenth of a penny per message, perhaps up to a penny if the videos contain any advertising to go with them, to guarantee bypassing of provider spam filters.

Once again Google is a chief holdout along with Microsoft. But those loudly alarmed last time could shatter some glass with their voices this time around because it's not just AOL on board with it. It's Yahoo, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. This half-dozen represent about 75 percent of inboxes. If a similar arrangement as the one with AOL in 2006, each provider gets a cut of the Goodmail cash.

Yahoo is an interesting addition to an already notorious group of providers. Two years ago, they just played footsie with the plan, abruptly withdrawing their sensitive digits when water got too hot. The rest have never had any qualms about innovative ways to monetize their networks, nor qualms about upsetting everybody, including customers, in the process.

It's hard to know what to make of Comcast's participation in conjunction with other odd news today that the cable company is New York Times' Bits Blog (Sam Hansell authors) that this new authentication initiative could lead to automatic approval of other email application innovations. Imagine, for example, being able to make a purchase of a product without leaving your inbox. Horan is banking on that one especially to grab the attention of email marketers and nonprofit donation-dependent organizations who made such a ruckus two years ago about how devastating Goodmail's pricey authentication could be to their bottom line.

Shrewd move, already a bit more clever than Goodmail's previous CEO and founder, who often got
No, George, we've already established text will still be free to send. If you want to send out your new video column, that's where you'll run into filter trouble if you don't have the money to pay the troll toll.

Horan himself brought up the tired old FedEx example used countless times by ISPs to justify their stances against Net Neutrality:

“It is akin to saying there is U.S. Postal Service and there is FedEx,” he said. “Some people can pay a premium to get a message to you sooner, in better style.”

It's a tired old example because it is a false analogy used to persuade tired old Congressmen who don't understand the Internet. There's no series of tubes, no dump trucks of data, no restraints of real-world physics, no planes, trains or automobiles or government (in)efficiencies and budgets involved.

Comparing Goodmail to FedEx is also a big mistake. It's a trigger to launch a whole world of passionate agenda setters onto Goodmail again, and it mimics telecoms' and cable companies' arguments for a tiered Internet nobody wants except those who expect to profit immensely from the tiers. The FedEx argument already failed because it's not the same thing. Why bring it up again?

Sam Hansell found a hole in it pretty quickly, too, by mentioning the postal service doesn't sift through his mail to throw out 95 percent of it before he gets it. But again we have a false analogy. First, postal service costs money and that is the chief reason one doesn't get a thousand times more junk mail at home. Second, ESPs are expected to filter out junk mail as a customer service.

What we're looking at instead—if we want to keep this tired old analogy—is that the US Postal service has access only to Interstates that are partially blocked, meaning that they can't always make it to where they want to go, while special underground high-speed pay tunnels provide smooth sailing to any destination. What we're looking at is FedEx putting the Postal Service out of business entirely.

That makes Goodmail a full-fledged Net Neutrality issue. That makes Goodmail the sole arbiter of who gets to a cabal of providers. That makes it easier for providers (all of whom deal in video distribution these days) to block out user-generated competitors. That makes the wave of the future—Internet video message distribution—firmly in the grip of a few corporations. That makes it one more step toward your next step, your next pivot, one you have to pay for.

You want the truth? Spam is actually a small price to pay to keep email free. It's better than the real-money expensive alternative.