Both can be pretty irritating. In either case, someone who just walks in off the street who wants to buy a book or an orange without supplying personal information has to pay a premium.

So the idea of a two-tiered e-mail system shouldn't be a surprise.

But e-mail satisfaction depends more upon what you receive, or manage to screen out, than on what you send. In a perfect world, one would be able to pay a little extra for a service that screened out the messages you didn't want and delivered only the ones that matter.

In this spirit, certain e-mail providers have hatched a plan that allows certain "legitimate" businesses to pay a small fee to bypass spam filters and make sure their valuable commercials arrive unscathed (Inbox, Feb. 11). Users are rebelling, calling it an e-mail tax and delivering petitions to America Online, which is implementing the scheme.

I'm not convinced that this threatens to destroy the open Internet, as some profess. But it does create a two-tiered system that places the tier assignments in someone else's hands.

Let's take this to the real world: People get five catalogs a day in a post-office box. All land in the trash. Should the recipients be grateful if all of the catalogs originate from high-class places like Dell or Restoration Hardware? Are they relieved because the catalogs from Steve's Sex Toys are absent? It doesn't matter. Unwanted catalogs are still trash, and unwanted e-mail will always be spam.

You can avoid two-tiered schemes on principle. Don't shop in places that ask for a little plastic card, or snap at the clerk who offers you a year's worth of discounts for $40.

But the worst aspect of AOL's game is that it removes this choice. All of a sudden you do not determine the tier in which you reside. A "better class" of spam is still unwanted, and it doesn't stop you from automatically deleting mail from old friends you don't immediately recognize. And people — no, companies — can buy their way into your inbox.

Spammers don't pay postage and can send a million messages "free." A handful of responses keeps them in business. Forcing commercial mailers to pay a delivery charge will at least guarantee that any such mail you receive is from someone who has made an investment. This is a good thing.

On the other hand, anything that allocates these choices to anyone but the recipient is a bogus scheme.

If an e-mail provider really cares about users, it will develop a way for people to accept or reject messages from individual vendors, so that commercial e-mail arrives in your inbox by invitation only. They won't be able to charge as much, but it will put the users in control. Where we should be.

If you have questions or suggestions for Charles Bermant, you can contact him by e-mail at cbermant@seattletimes.com. Type Inbox in the subject field. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.