Dee- Those emails are paid for spam. The advertisers (euphemism?) pay to be allowed to send "bulk" emails and get them through AOL's filters. There are not a LOT of these and mostly they are from otherwise reputable companies or senders--I get them from Time magazine on occasion. Joan In a message dated 8/23/2008 3:27:12 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: I have a question about mail that you get with the AOL envelope and stripes on it. I always thought that this was only used for "Official" AOL mail. I opened one the other day that was on a newsletter which I get from BBC America telling of new shows. Today one was on a letter from a Democratic web site telling about Obama and Joe Biden. Although I'm subscribed to the BBC Newsletter, I consider the Democratic one spam. anyone know what is going on with this and why these things have the AOL "thingy" on them? Dee **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)