[thelist] Re: [azipa] AOL - The evil ISP, email, and abandonment of customer privacy/rights? (fwd)

Darrell King darrell at webctr.com
Sat Apr 28 05:52:15 CDT 2001


<.snip>

>	A very interesting link provided by the admin of
>mailinglists.org on Nanog
>discussion lists sheds some light on aol and their dubious strong-arm
>tactics.  Check it out, im curious if others find this as wrong as I do...
>
>http://www.mailinglists.org/aol.html
>
>	I'm sure most aousers probably are oblivious to what their TOS actually
>reads about items like this, but i'd be afraid to look after reading this.
>I must admit aohell has a huge set of... uh, nevermind.
>

This is great, Mike.  AOL is often condemned as an evil empire, true
enough, but personally I wouldn't give them that much credit.  They
serve (or believe they serve) an obtuse, non-critical clientele and
behave accordingly.  Hey, they're thinking, why on earth would an
AOLer ever WANT to join an independent mailing list?  What do THEY
need to know, anyway?

Wow.  I hope lots of A-woe-Lers see that document and pull their
plugs and sign up with an ordinary [non-spying, non-hand-holding,
non-elbow-cupping] ISP like most of the rest of us.

One of my favorites is this:

15.  AOL reserves the right to discontinue delivery of mail from an internet
         sender for any reason or no reason whatsoever.

Which they follow directly with this:

16.  In no way does this agreement imply delivery, or timely delivery of mail
         from any sender.

<./snip>





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