BULK E-MAIL MESSAGES

Several advocacy groups are protesting plans by America Online and Yahoo to charge charities, companies, and other organizations that send e-mail messages to large numbers of people, reports The New York Times. MoveOn.org, a liberal group that sends appeals and newsletters to three million e-mail addresses, and an Internet civil-liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are organizing the protest. Discounts will probably be available to charities, the newspaper said, but any fee would “be a disadvantage to “charities, small businesses and even families with mailing lists that will have no guarantee their e-mail will be delivered,” said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org Civic Action, the group’s nonpolitical arm.”