So far it looks like it’s AOL and Yahoo! for Goodmail, and Google not so much. Google has just announced that it will not be using Goodmail. And Yahoo! makes a point of saying it will be using Goodmail quite differently than is AOL:

Yahoo! Postmaster Miles Libby has been very pointed in delineating the difference between AOL’s and Yahoo!’s arrangement with Goodmail.

Libby in DM News:

"The first major difference is that we are designating it for transactional e-mails only. This avoids a lot of the, ‘All e-mails need to be spam’ kind of concerns."

Rodriguez gave the impression that Gmail’s current spam detection system was an adequate defense for its users.

"Gmail has a superior spam detection system that gives users ultimate control over the messages that are filtered into their spam folders," she said.

No Goodmail For Gmail Jason Lee Miller Staff Writer, Webpronews.com, Published: 2006-04-20

The underlying current of this whole controversy is net-neutrality, with in this case allegations of spam possibly being legitimized for those who can pay for it.

I agree with Esther Dyson in the sense that I think there will be multiple solutions, but I doubt that Goodmail is one of the ones that will win in the end. Of course, I would say that, since I’ve been saying all along (for fifteen years or so) that AOL is not the future of the Internet, either. Hm, as the Internet (even in the U.S., however slowly) goes broadband, it looks increasingly like I was right about that last..

Let a thousand mail certification solutions bloom, and may those that best block spam and phishing while letting legitimate mail through spread. I’m betting that the most flourishing will be those that incorporate some form of outbound mail filtering together with some form of collecive  leverage beyond single organizations. Diversity and cooperation are good risk management.

-jsq