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Dean Florez, a state senator in California, will hold a hearing on April 3rd about AOL's proposed implementation of a two-tiered email system.

AOL Postmaster Charles Stiles has agreed to testify at the hearing of the California Senate Select Committee on E-Commerce, Wireless Technology and Consumer Driven Programming. Florez has also http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/templates/SDCTemplate.asp?a=5337&z=142&cp=Pr... class=bluelink>requested AOL delay its plans to start using Goodmail's "CertifiedEmail" system as "a matter of good faith."

"The willingness of the major entities involved to come before the California Senate and testify about this proposal is very promising for consumers," Florez said. "I can only hope that same spirit of cooperation will lead AOL to agree to postpone this until a very concerned public can get their questions answered."

Goodmail will also be in attendance for the hearing. The timing comes as AOL's schedule for implementing CertifiedEmail occurs this weekend. Florez hopes to have a response from AOL on the matter by the end of business today.

In a statement on the Senator's site, several user concerns about CertifiedEmail's impact on email services have been mentioned. The company has previously addressed one common concern, "that advertisers will pay the fee to circumvent spam filters":

Senders of CertifiedEmail are qualified, accountable organizations, accredited by Goodmail, who follow best email practices and use the service only to communicate with existing, "opt in" customers. It is in the best interest of Goodmail's business to maintain the high integrity of the service to ensure that consumers trust and feel safe opening CertifedEmail messages.
Many of the topics Florez and the Committee may address could have answers already, based on Goodmail's summary of responses to numerous concerns previously addressed. And of course there is another option for stopping spam: postage for all email.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.