Mailbag: For (or at least less-opposed to) AOL’s pay-for-e-mail scheme

Last week’s column on AOL’s fee-for-e-mail plan generated lots of reaction, most of it negative. My last column had excerpts from those expressing negative views on the scheme – this column provides comments from readers who are less opposed to it:

* “If you frequently don’t know who will be contacting you, and if these people are not your customers, you may find pay per mail to be a worthwhile option but I, for one, would not be willing to pay for an e-mail I send to an institution requesting sales information.”

* “I am an ardent supporter of an open Internet and I believe it’s an infringement on my privacy to be constantly bombarded with unwanted, unsolicited and mostly spurious mail whether it be of the electronic or traditional type. After reading much about fees to send e-mails, I think the concept of charging for bandwidth consumption is the only way to deal with the mushrooming demand, and charging a fee for e-mails is in line with that idea (though I don’t believe it will have an effect on the volume).”

* “As someone who manages our college’s e-mail systems and network, I am part of the fight against unsolicited e-mail. I wholeheartedly agree that the Internet is by no means free, and that the cost of e-mail management needs to be shifted to those who wish to send their millions of unsolicited messages.”

* “Freeloaders and scam artists will always take the path of least resistance (reference sewage). If charging high volume mailers a fee per e-mail causes spam to become less of a problem, so be it. What I see this fee-based e-mail becoming is a way for all providers to justify making extra profit by doing the same for normal single send e-mail, postage if you will. They cannot call it that because the government would be irritated that they did not get there first.”

Thank you very much to everyone who provided their comments on the article.