Digital Marketing by Epic Innovations AOLs recent announcement that they would allow certified emails to circumnavigate their usual spam filters has brought the issue of spam to the forefront of the media, again. Critics claim that by adopting CertifiedEmail, AOL is essentially supporting an email tax - allowing preferential treatment to those email messages which pay an estimated 1/4 cent fee. They hypothesize that Spammers will find a way to join this service, and see this email surcharge a small cost for the benefit of ensuring that their mail reaches potential customer in-boxes. AOL counters that this is just another effort to minimize the amount of spam its members receive. According to email delivery system 'Vertical Response', AOL 9.0 only shows HTML emails from those people already listed in your address book. Anonmymous emailers must deliver their content in text format. Spam is an issue that every online marketer must address at some time. Legitimate marketing messagese are being lost in a sea of male enhancement and investment advice solicitations. Government enforcement, most notably the Can Spam Act, has had a limited effect in stopping spam. This move by AOL has significant implications for email marketers, particularly those conducting guerilla marketing campaigns with limited budgets. This is just another reason to move away from total dependency upon email marketing.