Yahoo and AOL wants you to pay to send email

This is probably the most ridiculous idea ever thought up by Yahoo and AOL. Both companies want to charge email senders a small fee to guarantee that their emails reach the recipient's inbox and not the spam folder. From Business Week:

The plan, while it's optional and would apply to only a fraction of people sending e-mail, amounts to a reversal in the economics of the Internet because it would charge message senders rather than those receiving them. The current model has led to the proliferation of spam and so-called phishing scams because the people perpetuating them can turn a profit even when only a minority of recipients respond, analysts have said.

AOL and Yahoo said the program, which is being offered through a company called Goodmail Systems, will target banks, online retailers and other groups that send large amounts of e-mail. In exchange for a payment and a pledge to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, the companies would be ensured their e-mails aren't diverted to spam folders or have images or Web addresses filtered out.