AOL's email service in the UK appears to be up and running again after suffering the collywobbles earlier today.

The ISP blamed essential maintenance work in the US for the problems, which left some users unable to send or receive email, while others temporarily "lost" emails in their inbox.

A spokeswoman for AOL UK said fewer than one per cent of its UK users were hit by this morning's glitch, but with more than two million users, that's still several thousand users without email.

She apologised for the snafu before adding that the work would be completed by lunchtime.

Yesterday, it emerged that AOL and Yahoo! are to start charging for sending emails.

Both companies will still accept free emails but are offering the chance to pay to avoid their spam filters. ®

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• AOL's email tax - charities get reprieve (6 March 2006)
• Opposition to AOL's 'email tax' grows (1 March 2006)
• AOL and Yahoo! to charge for emails (6 February 2006)
• Punters continue to flee AOL (2 February 2006)
• Police collar AOL phishing suspect (27 January 2006)
• AOL UK to spend £120m on local loop unbundling (20 January 2006)