GoodMail is not so good

There has been a large amount of press in the past couple of days about the GoodMail announcement that several major ISP's were going to start using the Goodmail system to in essence charge mailers to insure delivery to the in-box and display graphics.  Much of this has been paraded around as a way of protecting the consumer from receiving Spam and reducing Phishing attacks.  I think we should call it what it is, a way for ISP's and GoodMail to make money.

Don't get me wrong, I am a capitalist, and beleive in free markets, but no matter what you want to call this, it is a toll or tax, and the people that are going to pay it are the emailers who are doing things right already and in most cases are making it to the in-box. 

If I have permission to email you, send relevant content in a respectful manner, remove you from the list if you ask, and take bad addresses off my list, I am a good email citizen, and my mail should be delivered to whomever requests it.  There should be no third party making a profit off of that.  Presumably, that third party is already being paid by the recipient to deliver their mail.  In today's world, given the previous senario, the mail is most likely being delivered.  With the GoodMail system, that mail is likely to end up in a Spam folder, have links and images removed, or not make it through at all.  So if I am a good mailer today, I am forced to pay to continue to receive what I get today because I am doing the right thing.

In my mind, this program benefits the bad mailier (read spammer).  Maybe permission is so-so, they don't keep the list as clean as they should.  Get more complaints than is wise.  To this mailer, Goodmail is a blessing.  While there will be some guidelines, the dollar is the name of the game, and a paying customer will be tough to shut down for a "few infractions."  This mailer will gladly pay to play.

So, GoodMail is bad for emailers.  It just doesn't make sense to add friction to the part of the email system that is working.  Yes there is Spam and all kinds of other awful stuff going on in the email world.  But just as you don't solve a crime spree by locking up all the good guys, you don't solve the email problem by taxing the people that are not causing the problem to begin with.