Free e-mail soon to be a thing of the past

Millions of Internet users worldwide, including Filipinos who have relied for a long time on free-e-mail services from the more popular search engines, are in for a major disappointment very soon.

The STAR learned that Yahoo, considered the world’s most popular search engine, is set anytime to end its free-e-mail service and instead offer this for a minimal dollar-based fee equivalent to around P200 a year. This of course is on top of the amount one has to pay to connect to the Internet.

This is said to be the reason why since late last week, those using Yahoo to search through the Internet are having difficulty accessing their e-mail.

Aside from Yahoo, the world’s second most popular search engine Hotmail is also planning to impose a fee for the use of its e-mail service very soon.

Right now, almost every Filipino that uses the e-mail opens either a Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail account, which is provided for free at present. And e-mail remains to be the biggest reason why Filipinos connect to the Internet.

In the Philippines, online messaging company Edsamail will impose beginning April 20 current users of its free e-mail service a fee of P365 a year for dial-up Internet access for sending and checking e-mail.

According to Edsamail general manager Margarita Torres, the decision was reached due to a slump on online advertising spending this year. The ad revenues, she said, are no longer enough to subsidize the cost of the bandwidth and telephone lines.

Income generated from interactive banner and pop-up ads, co-branded CDs, and e-mail sponsorship pays for a substantial portion of the cost of Edsamail operations. There are 200,000 to 250,000 active users of Edsamail.

The same reason is being cited by Yahoo and Hotmail for their decision to charge users for e-mail access. The drop in advertising spending forced many companies to review their operations. Like the local Edsamail, Yahoo and Hotmail are dependent on ads to finance their operations.

But since Yahoo and Hotmail are both international companies, official sources said it is not yet known how the two will charge for the use of their e-mail service.

"If this is going to be through international credit cards, then many Filipinos will have difficulty since not everyone is eligible," an official of a local Internet service provider said.

In order to have an international credit card, companies required applicants to be of certain age and that they meet a minimum annual income.

Right now, Filipinos of all income bracket and ages utilize free e-mail services provided by Yahoo and Hotmail, even if they do not have their own personal computers since they can easily go to any Internet café and pay a minimal fee for access to the Web and use of a PC.

The move of free e-mail service providers to finally charge for the use of this service is expected to benefit Internet service providers, Post-paid or pre-paid Internet service provider (ISP) subscribers usually get free e-mail accounts, but these are not actually free since the cost of these are also charged to the subscriber.