"I am not sure what they mean by 'Internet-based e-mail software' but if it means a web-based interface only, it is not acceptable for a paid service. There should be both a web-based and POP or IMAP service."

If they they are going to go the web based email route (and it certainly sounds like they might) it'll be the netscape.net service they already have in place. And well.. if you had tried a recent version of Netscape (6+) you'd know they've had IMAP support for netscape.net email for years now.