• by editor , David Baker , February 6, 2006

There has been quite a rumbling in the industry since AOL announced that it will be "discontinuing" its enhanced white list and instituting a paid-for service that has a relative "postage" fee for e-mail delivery provided through Goodmail Systems. But it's difficult to understand the impact this could have if you didn't understand the benefits of the enhanced white list in the first place.

To clarify this matter, I asked Deidre Baird, president of e-mail optimization firm Pivotal Veracity, for an update about what this means to you. She was kind enough to explain every last detail.

AOL has two white lists - the standard white list and the enhanced white list: 1. The standard white listis what most mailers are on, if they are on any white list at all. You can apply to be on the standard white list, and once approved by AOL, you will remain on this list as long as your bounces, spam complaints and spam-trap addresses remain below the thresholds that AOL sets and monitors (but does not publish). Being on the AOL standard white list provides definite benefits, because it reduces the amount of filtering that will take place on your e-mails, and improves your inbox placement rate. Being on the AOL standard white list does not alter whether images will display. Instead, this setting is controlled by the version of AOL that the recipient is using; AOL 8.0 and lower have images on by default, while AOL 9.0, AOL.com and future versions of AOL have images off by default.

2. The enhanced white list is a subset of mailers (IPs) that are also on the standard white list. The thresholds that AOL sets for spam complaints, bounces, spam-trap addresses, etc. that must be maintained in order to be eligible. are tighter or more restrictive than those for the standard white list. However, you cannot apply for the enhanced white list. Instead, AOL automatically places mailers from the standard white list who consistently meet the more rigorous standards on this smaller list. In fact, only a small percentage of those mailers who are currently on the standard white list meet the standards of the enhanced white list. Similar to the standard white list, the enhanced white list reduces the amount of filtering on your e-mails and improves your inbox placement. Additionally, being on the enhanced white list will change the default setting of images to "on" in AOL 9.0, AOL.com and newer versions of AOL. Thus, the incremental benefit of the enhanced white list over the standard white list is that it enables images in the newer AOL e-mail clients.

More to the point: AOL is not discontinuing either the standard white list or the enhanced white list. AOL did announce to the media that its enhanced white list would be discontinued in June. However, as of late afternoon last Monday, AOL's position on the enhanced white list had changed. The enhanced white list will not be discontinued in 2006. Rather, the thresholds will be tightened and, as a result, there will be even fewer mailers that are eligible for inclusion on the enhanced white list. Since there are only a small fraction of mailers who are on it now, this will not impact 99.9 percent of you, regardless of the tightening restrictions.

So what will happen to AOL's enhanced white list after 2006? Nobody knows, nor would it be prudent for AOL to make predictions about what they'll need to do months from now.

Were the media who reported on the discontinuation last Monday morning wrong? No, they were not. That was the content of the release the media received from AOL on Friday. But AOL had changed its position by end of day Monday--without making an official statement about this change. Thus we may continue to read about a discontinuation of the enhanced white list, even though this is no longer true.

The AOL standard white list has not been the subject of any press this week, but it should be mentioned that this white list will remain in existence as well.