AOL made thousand of million of dollars profits with its services, however it contributed very little to innovation. It made poor planning for the future. I do not think we should pay for something we already receive free of charge. Simply by using cosmetics symbolism as a "service"

Um, true censorship is done by governments - the citizenry has no alternative but to comply. AOL is a company, publicly traded, but a company nonetheless. There are no "rights" conveyed to the masses. AOL's subscribers are paying for use of the service. DearAOL is not. It's craptastic that some bigwig may be able to buy his way past the spam filter, but not nearly as captastic as DearAOL claiming they should be allowed to do the same without the $$. Maintaining a messaging infrastructure ain't cheap, y'all. Should AOL's customers take a rate hike to pay for the increased bandwidth needed if DearAOL and its successors get their way?

BTW:

1) AOL is NOT an ISP, it is an Online Service; a gateway or portal. It is the sandbox of the internet grade schoolers, and 10 or so years ago when they gained access to IRC (anyone remember that) the behaviour of its users and management got it k-lined from almost 99% of the IRC servers out there.

2) Why are so few people noticing the irony here that EFF and DearAOL are b****ing about the right to spam AOL customers as well as the big guys with fat wallets.

3) Anyone who uses AOL (yes I do, and have since it was Quantum Media Services in the late 80's) knows that it's constantly alerting you to check out spam its quarantined. Oddly enough, I've never sent a SINGLE email from my primary screen name. EVER. Yet it gets as much spam as my regular screen name(s). Ca brand new screen name and see how your inbox fills up. Makes you think...

4) The fact that AOL's anti-spam software is buggy enough to "accidentally" block email from one domain, yet sophisticated enough to allow free passage to the highest bidder is kinda fishy, no?

in order to be eligable for this service the sender has to provide proof that you signed up for their email, therefor it isnt just people who think they are legitimate, it is only companies you have a business agreement/ prior contact with. thats not to say that there wont be hidden "sign me up for your newsletter/spam" sections to eulas (which there already are) its just for people like say you want to get local listings from moviefone or something, well it is set to make sure that that doesnt get caught as spam, because with goodmail implemented they can tighten their spam filters to truly get rid of spam. the reason thier filters arent working is because they cant make them picky enough because alot of legitimate business email looks just like spam. so if all real business email goes through this legitimate goodmail then they tighten the filters and bam! less spam. i think aol just didnt explain it very well and got off on the wrong foot with the press.

M. Sweazy.
There is not doubt that goverments not just in usa but elsewhere as well are planning means and way in how "provide licenses" to their mates (companies or individuals) in the same manner that the French Aristocracy were given licenses to sell chocolate in France in the 18th century. In other words, no valid reason to restrict that trade and meake it exclusive to some. That is exactly what is going on now they are preparing to prevent us once again to communicate freely with each other by attempting to provide "licenses" to certain companies and individuals to continue exploit us by restricting us to a service that we already enjoy. It is not a question of having a view against AOL per se. It is a question that AOL has done first with the sole idea to receive "the first licence" form the usa goverment. If your are basing your comments in law common law dictates that if one day a goverment is going to issue licences then is obligued to grant those licences to people o comapanies who are already "practice" that particula trade or calling...... etc etc

no sorry but you are wrong, and your spelling leaves something to be desired. afraid that you have no idea what the goodmail service is actually for and thus are making random comments in the dark about what you see in front of you. not only do you look like an idiot but you also make no attempt to better your understanding of the current topic, instead relate things to french and chocolate. aol is NOT attempting to make a tiered internet, they are trying to make spam filters tighter, guarantee that legit email gets through said tighter spam filters, and make a chunk of change on the side. truly i think their idea is great, although it would be better if they provided goodmail for free. as it is you have let the ill-informed/purposly misleading media sway your view on something instead of actually finding out what the current issue is and deciding on it yourself.

Your lack of capitalization leaves much to be desired as well. And no, it is not acceptable to not capitalize at the beginning of sentences and other appropriate places anymore than it is to spell words incorrectly. Your lack of capitalization appears to be deliberate whereas the misspelled words were not. This was off topic, but I'm sure you get my point.

Um.. on the surface this looks easy. But look deeper, its not that simple. How many people have ONLY 1 email address? Critics don't want to mix business with personal either, so what's stopping them from creating another personality for criticism..

Fine all emails from "Dearaol.com" were bounced, AOL bounces my Company email too. The solution, quit sending email to AOL people. Done. This ISN'T business critical to send to aol email.

MOST online sites won't even let you sign up with an anonymous email like AOL, Yahoo, or MSN anyway (at least some of the ones I belong to). Once they see the domain aol.com, they will make you use another email address, so this isn't a big deal.

Besides, Europe doesn't use AOL, so evidently more than half the world could care less.

Besides, Europe doesn't use AOL, so evidently more than half the world could care less.
--------------------------------------------
Beg to differ with you on that. There's AOL UK, AOL Germany and several others throughout Europe. Check it out for yourself. But, "look deeper", as you say.

Dear M. Sleazey

Who cares about your legal mumbo jumbo. Thoes who know a bad deal (such as AOL) when they see one just want to alert others.

Dear Mr. Sleazy

Are you a lawyer? We could all do without lawyers and AOL.

Just a thought…

I suspect that this suggestion will elicit the ire of so many who feel that they have the right to impose their view of how the world should operate upon others, but I have a slightly different take…

First let me go on record as having no use for AOL nor it’s services, and I wonder why Anyone would pay AOL such exorbitant fees for simple access to the Net.

That having been said, they are a private service to which individuals must actively subscribe! It is ironic that so much ire is raised by those who are not customers of AOL! Instead of all of the AOL subscriber’s complaining, it seems the majority of those complaining are folk, who for the most part, dislike AOL, and would still dislike AOL regardless of what they do! Ironically, most would STILL have negative things to say about AOL if the article said that AOL’s email system was functioning Perfectly!

So the bottom line is this. They are free to conduct their business in anyway they like as long as they do not actively interfere with communications outside of their domain. And individuals are free to subscribe (if they like that kind of service) or to leave AOL’s services as they choose.

The fact is, the coming tiering of such services appears to be imminent, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Joe Barton discussing the Telecom Reform Act (as reported below) has recently defeated amendments to restrict such tiered servicing and has thus (apparently) defeated the concept that is commonly referred to as ‘Internet Neutrality’. So expect more of this from your Telcos, Cable companies, and any other network controlling admins! It will not simply be in the form of filtering email, but in restricting additional services such as independent ISPs, VOIP, and competing businesses from a local carriers network – especially if they are conducting a service that competes with the controlling network management’s vested interests! And with this manner of proposed 'reform', quite frankly, AOL is the least of your worries!

Well said and objectively so. Personally, I like AOL and respect the right of others to state their opinion as objectively as this.

heres the whole story.
http://www.eff.org/news/...ives/2006_04.php#004556

April 13, 2006
AOL Censors Email Tax Opponents

Won’t Deliver Emails Mentioning www.DearAOL.com

UPDATE After this press release was sent out Thursday afternoon, AOL stopped blocking email with links to www.DearAOL.com. Officials at the company stated that problems of this nature generally take three to five working days to fix. However, this was fixed after 24 hours of undeliverability - and approximately twenty minutes after this press release was widely distributed. This incident only increases our worry about organizations who don't have the ability to seek instant press attention. The next time AOL's anti-spam filters fail for a small organization – or one without political muscle – will they move so quickly to fix them? Or will they push organizations to just sign up with Goodmail and pay to avoid the problem?

San Francisco - AOL is blocking delivery to AOL customers of all emails that include a link to www.DearAOL.com. Today, over 100 people who signed a petition to AOL tried sending messages to their AOL-using friends, and received a bounce-back message informing them that their email "failed permanently."

"The fact is, ISPs like AOL commonly make these kinds of arbitrary decisions – silently banning huge swathes of legitimate mail on the flimsiest of reasons – every day, and no one hears about it," said Danny O'Brien, Activism Coordinator of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "AOL's planned CertifiedEmail system would let them profit from this power by offering to charge legitimate mailers to bypass these malfunctioning filters."

After reports of undelivered email started rolling in to the DearAOL.com Coalition, MoveOn co-founder Wes Boyd decided to see for himself if it was true.

"I tried to email my brother-in-law about DearAOL.com and AOL sent me a response as if he had disappeared," said Boyd. "But when I sent him an email without the DearAOL.com link, it went right through."

While AOL may imply that censoring www.DearAOL.com is part of some anti-spam effort, their own customers are witnessing how faulty AOL's spam measures would be if that were the case.

"I forwarded www.DearAOL.com to my own AOL account and it was censored. Apparently I can't even tell myself about it," said Kelly Tessitore from Framingham, Massachusetts.

"This proves the DearAOL.com Coalition's point entirely: left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self-interest ahead of the public interest in a free and open Internet," said Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working on media reform and Internet policy issues. "AOL wants us to believe they won't hurt free email when their pay-to-send system is up and running. But if AOL is willing to censor the flow of information now to silence their critics, how could anyone trust that they will preserve the free and open Internet down the road? Their days of saying 'trust us' are over – their credibility is zero, zip, nada."

The DearAOL.com Coalition represents over 15 million people combined – and has grown from 50 member organizations to 600 in a month. Since the beginning of the DearAOL.com campaign, more than 350,000 Internet users have signed letters to AOL opposing its pay to send proposal. Coalition members include craigslist founder Craig Newmark, the Association of Cancer Online Resources, EFF, Free Press, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Gun Owners of America, and others.

For more on the issues surrounding pay-to-send email, join EFF for a debate on April 20 in San Francisco. EFF's O'Brien and tech expert Esther Dyson will face off over the question "Email - Should the Sender Pay?" Entrepreneur Mitch Kapor will moderate.

More information about the DearAOL.com Coalition:
http://www.dearaol.com

More information on next week's debate:
http://www.eff.org/bayff/aolmail_debate.php

they are a company, not a government, and being so are free to block any type of traffice running through their network, and really your arguing here isnt going to change that fact in the least. personnally i dont care what aol does as i dont use them. but everyone else can do use what they like, and can be happy or not with it.

Go to EFF.org these are the guys who are being cencored by aol. there is a lot more to this story than just this article. if aol gets away with this then this could be the first step to spam filters just not working anymore, since you'll have to pay for them to work, oh but wait, spamers can pay as well to get there spam accross. the EFF is fighting for our rights, i realy don't see how anyone can not understand what AOL is tring to do.

actually if you knew what this was about in the least bit instead of getting all angry about something you think is bad before you know what it is, then you would know that spammers cant pay for access, it isnt a "pay us money and we will look the other way service", it is for certified mail that you signed up for to be assured that it will get to you. and do you even use aol? cause if you dont then it isnt going to affect you so shut up.

You'll have to pay for spam filters to work? You don't know what you're talking about. Btw, you can do spam filtering yourself.

This will not doubt be accompanied by filtering in which will make it imposible for current users tu send emails in the future without paying or perhaps they will add another charge for current users to receive emails as well .... do me a favour...

What is legite or not greatly depends on the person who receives or sends the emails no in other cosmetic symbolism...................

From the dictionary:

le·git·i·mat·ed, le·git·i·mat·ing, le·git·i·mates (-mt)

To make legitimate, as:

1. To give legal force or status to; make lawful.
2. To establish as legitimate by legal means.
3. To sanction formally or officially; authorize.
4. To demonstrate or declare to be justified.

So when you fill out something, sign up for something and provide your email address, and check the box giving permission or it's stated in the terms of agreement. It's legitimate. It's not their fault if you don't read it or don't notice it. If it's there and you proceed it's your own ignorance. That's what this paid service is about, getting those specific emails through.

Yeah, so if a spammer sends out email that they believe is legitimate, and I choose to block them, then that's my right. I don't care what THEIR belief is, its NOT legitimate to me.

AOL may have not wanted to make dearaol.com legitimate for some other reason. There are always 2 sides to every story.

maybe AOL did have a technical issue, and it was fixed. maybe that was legitimate. Maybe dearaol.com looked like spam to AOL.

One definition of spam is repeated and multiple recipients of messages. having the same dearaol.com in the subject line, destined for many users, repeatedly, our company would have rejected them also.

This is going to cross SPAM lines, I will guarantee. AOL can simply say dearaol.com was NOT legitimate, because they appeared as a flag on their spam filter.

The Email Service is currently free and it should remain free It does not matter what anyone says....................

The whole reason for the use of this "Goodmail's Certified Mail technology" is failure of technology itself.

Why are they doing this? Let's have a look. Your company sends legitimate emails to people that have signed up for news letters, mailing lists, monthy specials......oops they got blocked by our spam filters.

If you pay us a little money we'll use another filter that will make sure you don't get filtered as spam.

So they want to charge extra becuse they are unable to develope the perfect spam filter.

Is it worth protesting over? I'm not so sure. Protesting over paying for this work around, absolutely.

"About 300 people complained to those running the "Dear AOL" petition that e-mails with the Web site "www.dearaol.com" were being bounced back"

300? I've never had an AOL account, and I would never use them, but take off the hater glasses people. If 300 people complained, lord knows how many 1000's more actually attempted to send the email. If I'm an automatic spam filter and I see the same address coming up 1000's of times, guess what? That address is going to get filtered out for spamming.

The "glitch" they refer to, was probably something like that rather than someone intentionally blocking that address.

What most don't know is that this type of "glitch" happens quite often with ALL major ESPs. It is the reason "Filtering" is a BAD thing in general. Most don't even know it happens. But, in the past year I've tested this theory with many different types of political and environmental messages. And guess what, many were put into my friends spam folder. Now, why would this be?

With ALL major Extra Sensory Perceptions? :)You mean ISPs. You do have a point, though. Tell me, how many of those emails were HTML-based? Look at the output from something like SpamAssassin and you'll see some of the indicators of spam. If companies don't want their emails to be labelled spam, they should try to avoid the indicators of spam.

a "technical glitch" so thats what they call it now these days.

The scary thing is that if this even works a little bit for them, others will be emboldened...spilling over into worst of all, all other types of web traffic ...

AOL I like to think of it as, The Junk yard Of The Web.

AOL is for losers.
Get a life by signing up with other ISPs.

This has been the motto since 1997 yo!

AOL is for losers.
Get a life by signing up with other ISPs.
-----------------------------------------
Proud to be a loser! Very proud.

who cares? If AOL wants to block email from a certain domain, let them...if you are dumb enough to be on AOL then you don't care about your internet access or email so you aren't missing anything. I block whole domains at my company. In fact, I don't allow any AOL email to come in.

If we have a customer email us from AOL. They get an automatic reply saying that AOL isn't "compatible" with our systems and they will have to find another email account. These people are dumb enough to believe it and they hop over to Gmail or something like that to email us..

If they don't, oh well, I don't want customers that are customers of AOL anyway.

being old enough to have seen the inception of the internet as a publicly used network (yes, before the net there were other publicly accessible methods to communicate with others, called BBS's).. Aol, and for a while, while they were also big and bold,Delphi, Compuserve, and other current service providers such as msn and earthlink to name a few... IMO, they are all lame and have always been, I blame ALL online services for the massive amount of lazy and computer illiterate computer owners there are out there today...
Back in the day, you used a dialup account, you had to manuallt set up stuff, you had to do things and you had to know a little about computers to access them.. yes, this was a bad and evil thing so the online services flourished because they did it all for you... all you had to do was open the cup holder.. err cd tray on your computer and insert the coaster errr... cd :).
Anyone who uses online services deserves what they get... period

ummmm, where did I complain about AOL's actions? I just asked who cares what they do, it only affects AOL users anyway.

I, in fact, agree with what AOL is doing. I have been doing it for years, however I just have been filtering out AOL users to my company.

Agreed 100%

I don't want customers that are customers of AOL anyway.
-----------------------------------------
It scares me to think that you might run a company although I seriously doubt that you do. Be that as it may, however...your decision making is based on emotion rather than mature judgment regardless of what you do there.

It is a private company, service can be refused to anyone for any reason. Being dumb enough to use AOL is reason enough for me.

I don't want to spend my time holding their hand since that is what they require.

hahaha.. Good! Block those AOL users.

We get so many complaints, that as soon as we hear "email from AOL...". We just say stop right there, you are going to have to get email from another source. Sorry can't help you.

i think that is a perfectly valid way to do business. i run my own computer repair shop, and guess what? i dont fix computers that run 98 or earlier windows and dont cater to linux. is it fair to everyone? no, but i dont think it is worth the hassle of dealing with that old crappy os, and guess what. i still get more business than i can handle.

yeah cause aol includes all kinds of dumb programs to hold aol users hands, and other companies dont so we have to waste time spelling everything out to aol users, when we could have spent the same amount of time solving 3-4 other users problems. cause lets face it, the MAJORITY of aol users are either beginners to the net or are technology illiterate. notice not all but most are.

The Devil I tell you.....THE DEVIL!

wow... some people still use AOL!?

thats just plain dumb.

"wow... some people still use AOL!?

thats just plain dumb."
--------------------------------------
Yep, there's about 30 million of us dumb ones out here. And you know what? We like AOL, too. So flame away because you bring more attention to them,thus increasing their popularity. I love it!

I've got to use 'em, since in the UK there are very few (big) companies that provide an unlimited (uncapped) broadband service.

Got to be honest - I've never had any problem with them (and I hope I don't, I've heard bad things about the call centre) so I'm just hoping it doesn't crash and burn around me...

LOL, so you like AOL and their "internet" service.

ok, I have a great service to sell you. Each week I will either mow your lawn (or shovel your driveway if you get snow) for only $5 per week!

That's right! Only $5 per week. It is my "yard care" service.

Sound good? Well what will really happen is I will come by your house, not mow your lawn or shovel, but punch you in the side of the head and collect my $5.

Now since you use AOL and are happy with it I know you will never cancel my "yard care" service because you enjoy paying for something you don't get.

At the end of the day my service and AOL's service are the same, you will get dumber the longer you use it and your wallet will be empty.

Who wants to sign up?

Used AOL once didn't like it, but a few years later tried it again, and actually they have gotten a lot better. There are a lot of ISP's out there that claim to provide 2MB services but actually can't. Then too many people go online and wait you get knocked off. Now i was using AOL and never got kicked off once (not at all) and to tell you the truth the only problem with AOL is there absolutely ridiculous prices. (I do not use AOL now though because of that exact reason). but your not dumb for using AOL, I mean yes AOL used to rubbish but is actually getting a lot better and does provide a better service than most ISP's and for those living in the UK it IS hard to find a good ISP which is reliable and cheap.

Why not just keep AOL as your ISP, and use IE, Opera or Firefox for your browser, Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail for your FREE AND RELIABLE webmail, and MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger or GoogleTalk as your IM client?

Is there more to being a 3rd rate internet citizen in a first world country? *snicker*

Some? Umm.. try 60-80 million... There are a *BUNCH* using AOL.

There isn't anything wrong with AOL. They serve a purpose. To the average user, and Kids especially, parents love them. They have SPAM filter, parental controls, and controlled content.

You can setup a profile in Windows to prevent ANY program from running and restrict only AOL traffic. Some linksys routers can be configured to do this. So, AOL has gone to great lengths to make a good product for kids, avg users, people that like to chat. Its a community.

Maybe a dimwitted, simple minded, lack luster, basic, adolescent community, but it serves a purpose.

Are you insane? Its better to get an ISP.

did you know there is no such thing as AOL ISP? They are a reseller for local services. That's all. AOL doesn't have their own service. In order to make them appear as an ISP, they add a bunch of protocols and services on your computer, when you install AOL software.

So, it adds to congestion. You want the AOL browser and software, not just ISP, if you are going to use AOL. Otherwise dump it and get a REAL ISP.

That's overstating it, just a tad.

You should think about a little less caffeine.

AOL doesn't "punch you in the head". They do have some good services. If you don't like them, feel free to NOT use them. Its very simple.

AOL has restricted content, chat rooms, and a plethora of other (some are exclusive to AOL) services, so what is wrong with that?

You may not like them, no one is punching you in the head to use them.

AOL should be at the top of the distrust list.

or maybe right underneath the press as they often exagerate, mislead, "misquote", outright lie, etc. etc.
not saying that betanews lies but sometimes things get completely misstated. like this.

Another load of *rap from AOL. They sure do have the public convinced that they are the god of ISP's. Oh well, just look at the average AOL users, most of them just don't know any better.

Now, once more another site ISP etcetera behaving like little children. I'd call for getting out of AOL and make the Switch ASAP.....another mindbogler....if you pay me extra, i make sure your email errives, else i just shelf it....one other reason to switch provider.

This is easier said than done. AOL do not like users to leave. It took me 3 weeks to leave AOL. first they said I need a MAC code and then turned around and said that they can't give me one and they will just let me leave and told me to contact another ISP and join (yeah right). Another 2 ISP's said we can't join becuase AOL are still on the line and blocking the line. After a very long time and a lot of phone calls to AOL they finally let us leave becuase of arguing with AOL down the phone.

Another 2 ISP's said we can't join becuase AOL are still on the line and blocking the line.
------------------------------------
I do not believe that and I seriously doubt many others do either.

he is talking about broadband.

and i had a similar experiance when i had aol dial up, when i left they kept billing me, then i called them up to complain about it and all they did was say sorry, not fix it and try to sell me aol service again. eventually i just let the bills pile up and told my lawyer to talk to them about it.