As internet usage increases and email more rapidly becomes the communication medium of choice we’re faced with a whole raft of deliverability issues, mostly connected with the rising tide of spam email.

It is an unfortunate fact that a large portion of the measures deployed to filter and block unsolicited email, filter and block more legitimate email than spam. Hackers and spammers are usually petty much one step ahead and regardless of what measures you deploy at ISP level or on your home computer, its a disappointing fact of life that if you use email, generally you’re going to get spammed!

Increasingly IPS’s are employing their own filtering at server level so a lot of it never actually reaches you. What is harder to determine is how much of what the ISP filters is actually legitimate email. Inevitably, sooner or later someone was going to find a way to cash in on the situation.

Enter stage right, Goodmail who recently signed four new Internet service providers to participate in a program that guarantees marketing email delivery.
The Goodmail “seal of approval,” which will appear on emails whose companies have paid the fee, is meant to help users better navigate between credit card statements and other financial messages that are often mimicked by phishermen. Businesses can opt not to pay the fee, but risk having their e-mails blocked as spam at the ISP level.

Goodmail is, for now, targeted primarily at financial institutions and e-commerce sites and charges are generally one cent per e-mail, with the revenue split between Goodmail and the ISP.

Sounds like a nice little earner doesnt it? The problem is, is that just could be just the start and in my opinion, is ripe for abuse, pretty much to the point that email users could be held to ransom. Pay up or end up in the junk folder. Additionally, if big business can pay to bypass the filters, in future you could be powerless to prevent them sending you their promotional materials whether you want it or not.