About 3-4 years ago, I was a sysadmin at a marketing company. One of my primary tasks was making sure our emails got delivered. I've been on both sides of the c

About 3-4 years ago, I was a sysadmin at a marketing company. One of my primary tasks was making sure our emails got delivered. I've been on both sides of the coin: sending marketing messages and an every day email user. We were more or less forced at the time to use Goodmail to get our emails into AOL. At the end of the day, marketers are trying to get your attention. They'll do anything no matter how annoying. For example, flash banner ads. With that in mind, Goodmail was just another way for marketers to get mail into your inbox, with an incentive for the ISPs to let it through -- Goodmail split the senders fees with the ISP's. They wedged themselves into the industry as middle men. I don't think anyone outside of email admins and marketers knew anything about Goodmail or their blue ribbons, especially rural AOL users.