• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 9, 2006

Goodmail has forged relationships with 15 e-mail service providers in preparation for the upcoming launch of its certified e-mail system with Internet service providers AOL and Yahoo later this year.

The e-mail service providers have integrated Goodmail's technology into their systems, and have agreed to promote Goodmail's service to their clients, said John Ouren, senior vice president for sales and business development for the company. The e-mail service providers working with Goodmail include BlueStreak, Acxiom Digital, e-Dialog, Epsilon Interactive, ExactTarget, Exmplar, Harte-Hanks Postfuture, Premiere Global Services, Responsys, Silverpop, SmartDM, TailoredMail, Yesmail, WhatCounts, and Zustek.

Both AOL and Yahoo have said they will offer guaranteed delivery of messages, with links enabled and images intact, to marketers that have been certified by Goodmail. Yahoo intends to limit the program to "transactional" messages, such as bank statements, but AOL has said it will implement it widely.

Some watchdogs and Internet companies have criticized AOL for the program, arguing that the Internet service provider will have an incentive to degrade its own spam filters, in hopes that marketers will pay for guaranteed delivery.

AOL maintains that the Goodmail certification is voluntary, and that it will continue to deliver e-mail that isn't certified.

So far, only a handful of e-mail senders, including the New York Times and American Red Cross, have said they intend to use Goodmail's certification service. The ultimate cost is likely to be somewhere in the range of .25 cents to 1 cent per message. For now, however, participation is free, Ouren said.