Whether it's a case of poor planning or being highly responsive to customer feedback, AOL is quietly pulling back on their earlier intent to shut down the Enhanced White List.

This means that email marketers with highly relevant and targeted emails will still have the ability to get their links and images enabled without paying for Goodmail. Frankly, the combination of EWL and pay-for-delivery is probably the best solution overall. Obviously, I wish all email delivery were free but, for some kinds of messaging (e.g., transactional), guaranteed delivery can have a very high ROI.

I doubt if AOL will make a formal public retraction but I've heard about the decision from three different sources so I am confident that EWL will be with us for a long time to come. In any event, you heard it here first...