AOL and Yahoo!, two of the world’s biggest e-mail providers, are to charge companies to ensure that their e-mails reach consumers — even if spam filters are turned on.

The idea is almost identical to the Royal Mail’s system of guaranteed delivery in which companies such as banks pay a fee amounting to a fraction of a penny to send an e-mail that is certain to arrive promptly.

It amounts to the creation of a two-tier internet in which paid-for e-mails speed around the world while ordinary consumers — barred from paying for messaging — have to endure late or lost mail as the price for a free service.

A spokesman for AOL said that a paid-for e-mail service will be launched in the US and Canada “in the second quarter of the year” with a British service to follow soon after. Yahoo! is expected to follow suit. Together the two companies account for half of the American consumer market and a significant slice in Britain.

“We want e-mails sent using the technology to have a stamp of authentication, so that consumers know that an e-mail that appears to be from a bank really is from that bank. We think that will help cut down on spam, but we don’t want consumers to pay any extra,” said AOL.

But critics gave warning that AOL and Yahoo! were trying to profit from the service, the initial popularity of which helped to create the internet. They added that if businesses refused to pay up the system would collapse having achieved nothing.

AOL and Yahoo! have signed up to technology provided by Goodmail, whose paid-for certified system has been tested by the US Red Cross. The charity wants to develop its online fundraising capability, but it is increasingly concerned that hackers are using its identity to send out fraudulent requests for donation.

Paid-for e-mails using the system will be able to navigate past junk filters, but Goodmail promises to prevent bulk e-mail senders — spammers — from using the service.

Junk mail dominates the e-mail traffic sent over the internet. AOL says that its own filters block 1.5 billion e-mails a day, while only 300 million messages actually get through. Yet even some of those that slip past the net are hidden offers to buy Viagra or a request from a “bank” to provide account details, suggesting that about three quarters of e-mails sent are unwanted by their intended recipients.

Discussions about introducing a two-tier e-mail system have been running for many years, amid suggestions that not enough capital is available to invest in the long-term internet infrastructure.

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