These companies claim they're in the business of being "email trust authorities". I've been on this Earth for quite a while now, and one lesson I've learned is that whenever someone goes out of their way to say they're trustworthy, they're usually not.

Goodmail and their partners in crime are getting in the door by claiming to solve a problem. That problem, of course, is spam. The claim is that there's so much unsolicited email coming into your email boxes, why not create a list of trusted senders? Then, give senders on that whitelist preferential access to your email box.

Spam is certainly a problem, and email whitelists are certainly appealing. But while you might be perfectly happy telling your email client that your mom's on your whitelist, you're likely to be far less happy about having your ISP decide that Verizon or Caesar's Palace is trustworthy, but, because she didn't pay protection money, your mom isn't.

What Goodmail and their other digital racketeering partners are doing is selling your inbox to the highest bidders. Those that are willing to pay to gain access to your inbox are suddenly "trusted" while those who don't pay the tax aren't.

Most people who watch the Sopranos understand the concept of a protection racket. A thug goes into a business and threatens "bad things will happen" if money isn't paid to keep the bad at bay. In today's digital world, Goodmail is very much like Tony Soprano.

Goodmail, through AOL and Yahoo, is telling businesses and consumers that if you don't pay, the goodfellas at Goodmail won't allow your email to be delivered reliably, they won't allow you to reliably communicate with your peers, customers, family, and friends and your communication will be subject to extra scrutiny, possibly deletion, and certainly additional delay. Only if you pay your protection money to Goodmail will your mail be considered "good."

I wanted to see how the FBI defined racketeering and the closest analog I could find was this quote from the FBI Web site about labor racketeering: