AOL Allegedly Censors 'Email Tax' Opponents

Mediacitizen writes "AOL was accused yesterday of censoring email to AOL customers that included a link to a site opposing AOL's proposed 'email tax.' Over 300 people reported that they had tried sending AOL subscribers messages that contained a link to www.DearAOL.com, but received a bounceback message informing them that their email 'failed permanently.' After the DearAOL.com Coalition -- 600 organizations convened by Free Press, MoveOn and EFF -- notified the press of this blocking, AOL quickly cleared the opposition URL from their filters, alleging a 'software glitch.'"

AOL alienating its customers...

"software glitch"? Right. That's the most pathetic attempt at damage control I've seen in quite a while. I do agree that something has to be done about unwanted e-mails that keep flooding my inbox (my main e-mail address gets about 300 such e-mails a day) but AOL is driving down a road that will further alienate them from their users. By pulling stunts like this, they clearly demonstrate their motives as benefiting themselves and not the customers.

This does not bode well for the acceptance of e-mail tax. As if the general public wasn't against it in the first place.

It IS a software glitch

If you consider the AOL's CEO's brain as "software" :P

Re:AOL alienating its customers...

Gmail would obviously never do this. I don't *think hotmail or yahoo would either. As users get more educated about webmail and spam then they will start making more intelligent decisions over who handles their e-mail. So in a way I'm glad AOL is doing this. Its just going to speed up the process of natural selection and webmail providers.

Re:AOL alienating its customers...

> I don't *think hotmail or yahoo would either

I think MS certainly would...they've been accused of blocking GMail invites before, though they never admitted to doing it:

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/is-hotmail-blockin g-gmail-invitations-015942.php [gizmodo.com]
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,391577 55,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
http://google.weblogsinc.com/2004/06/23/hotmail-bl ocking-gmail-invites/ [weblogsinc.com]

Re:AOL alienating its customers...

Well, what about the benefit of the doubt in cases like this.

AOL has to protect its members from all sorts of attacks, and included in these are phishing and URL redirection that often come from email solicitation. AOL could simply have had a filter that would not link to anything with AOL in the URL except from specific sources (you see where I'm going with this ...).

Sure, there is always an air of Big Brother and evil corporations trying to oppress something ... but its not always the case.

Re:AOL alienating its customers...

AOL is driving down a road that will further alienate them from their users

Do you think any significant quantity of AOL's users care about things like this? There are two and only two things that will get AOL's attention: legislation/legal action or if really popular websites started to block AOL users from using their services. If MySpace blocked all traffic from AOL users until AOL scrapped their email tax and fired the person who blocked this email then (after the necessary lawsuits which AOL would ultimately lose) AOL would fire the person responsible for blocking these emails (or at least a very public scapegoat) and would scrap the email tax.

Ain't gonna happen though.

Re:AOL alienating its customers...

"software glitch"? Right. That's the most pathetic attempt at damage control I've seen in quite a while.

Come on, this is AOL we're talking about. I could actually believe it is a software glitch.

Note, I said "could".

YOU!!!! The Devil!

It was you or someone like you with whom I had the following conversation with a few years ago. It is a painful memory burned deep within my psyche.

AOL Rep: Thank you for waiting on hold for 53 minutes listening to the same 20 second recording over and over, how may I help you?
ME: I'd like to cancel AOL.
AOL Rep: Okay, no problem*. (*This is a trick)
ME: Great.
AOL Rep: I need to get your screen name.
ME: It's AOLSucks29785. I called myself that because AOLSucks1 through AOLSucks29784 were already taken.
AOL Rep: Do you live at 5022 Pheasant Circle, the white house with the blue shutters and a green Toyota parked in the front? Was you last telephone bill for $36.17? Did you have sex two nights ago for 28 minutes and could stand to put a little bit more fiber in your diet?
ME: [nervously] Uhhh... yeah.
AOL Rep: Okay, I've got you pulled up in our system. For verification purposes, what's your mother's maiden name?
ME: Henderson.
AOL Rep: I'm sorry, that's not correct.
ME: Um, yeah it is.
AOL Rep: Not according to our records. Has it changed recently?
ME: No, it's my mother's goddamn maiden name. It's been the same, like, forever.
AOL Rep: Well that's not what our computer says.
ME: I don't care about that, her maiden name is Henderson!
AOL Rep: Maybe when we first asked you, you told us her middle name instead of her maiden name.
ME: Well, her middle name is Sue.
AOL Rep: Nope, that's not it either. Try it one more time. What's your mother's maiden name?
ME: HENDERSON!
AOL Rep: Well why didn't you say that in the first place? Why did you tell me her maiden name was Williams?
ME: I DIDN'T!!
AOL Rep: Sir, I need you to calm down and speak to me respectfully or I will end this conversation.
ME: Look, I just need to cancel my AOL account. And please, don't waste your time or mine trying to read me that stupid script to get me to stay? Okay? I went through it before. The one where you ask me what I use the Internet for, and I tell you, and then you tell me all the ways that AOL supposedly makes it easier... don't do that. I just want to cancel.
AOL Rep: That's not a problem at all.
ME: Good.
AOL Rep: I would hate if someone used a script on me too.
ME: Well, exactly.
AOL Rep: So may I ask what sorts of things you use the Internet for?
ME: Dammit, you're using the script on me.
AOL Rep: No, sir, I wasn't. I was just making friendly conversation.
ME: I didn't call for friendly conversation, I called to get you to cancel a $30.00 per month bill for dial-up Internet when I can get super-fast high speed Internet for $19.99 per month.
AOL Rep: I bet that makes it really easy to watch movies and music videos online!
ME: I suppose, but --
AOL Rep: Did you know that AOL has a movie and music video service for high-speed internet that --
ME: Are you out of your mind?
AOL Rep: For just a low monthly fee, you can keep AOL and use it with your high-speed Internet!
ME: Why on God's Green Earth would I do that?
AOL Rep: AOL is so easy to use!
ME: I don't need Playskool Internet on my computer. I am capable of using a normal web browser.
AOL Rep: But it's --
ME: Just cancel my damn subscription.
Of course, two months later,

Re:YOU!!!! The Devil!

Oh good god no. That is the cancellations department (or as they call it the "Saves" department). They tried to make me take saves rollover calls once, I immediately and politely cancelled every account that the customer wanted cancelled. Lowest call time and highest customer satisfaction I think that queue ever saw. They never asked me to do it again...

Opposing Opinion

From the article: "Left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self interest ahead of the public interest."

Well, yeah, no kidding. Since when did the "public interest" pay AOL for anything? Unless there is a law which says AOL cannot filter its "own" servers, too bad. It is AOL's right to do anything like this it wants to.

Is this the best thing to do? Obviously not, however don't be shocked when it does happen. Unless you control your own email completely (from the ISP right down to the server) you are relying on someone else. And that someone else ultimately has their interests in mind before yours.

Now, do some companies care about your interest? Sure, but they are not going to place your interest above theirs, otherwise they will be out of business. Supressing propangda which might cost you money; I don't think any business wouldn't consider that; and most, if not all, would try it.

Software Glitch? Yeah right.

And I'm the Easter Bunny.

The future of "free speech"

Is now.

 

Re:The future of "free speech"

It is, if you exercise your right of free speech by going to the web site http://www.dearaol.com/ [dearaol.com] and signing the petition. The idea that spammers can pay a fraction of a cent to bypass spam filters is as bad as the games the phone company plays with unlisted numbers and caller ID.

You get caller ID

Telemarketing company pays extra to block caller ID on all outbound calls

You pay extra for an unlisted number

Telemarketing company pays extre for list of unlsted numbers

You pay for call block

Telemarketing company pays to bypass call block

People still use AOL?!?!

I remember when AOL was useful, back in the dialup BBS days. But seriously... why would anyone in their right mind still use AOL? The fact that they still survive is absolutely impressive. There is no need for AOL. If you use it, just stop and go with another provider.

http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

Re:People still use AOL?!?!

I will probably get flamed for this.

A large section of the population are idiots. These people can't figure out how to work a thermostat let alone the internet.

My boss is amoung them. I enjoy working for her, but we have been trying to wean her off AOL ever since work got a DSL line. That's right the company has a DSL line and spends whatever a month just for her AOL. She is the only one who wants it. She get's confused whenever we try to hide it on her. Heck she gets confused whenever we make minor changes.

As I said i do enjoy working for her(the side benefits aren't bad for the job) but she can't figure out how to download a file, or where to find it once it was downloaded. Those Concepts are above her head, and will always be that way.

so for her AOL is good. It's safe, and everything is in one place for her to use.

Stupid, but legal

No law says they cant filter out what ever they want too, as long as they publsh the list to their subscribers ( and that may not be required, but good practice ) We aernt talking a goverment here. there is no 'censorship' clause..

Time for AOL users to kick off the training wheels

if they don't like it. Otherwise AOL is well within their rights to do as they wish. AOL is a private network. Let the consumer vote with their dollars.

I like that excuse...

No i did not download torrents, its a software glitch.

yeah baby!

This is actually FUNNY

This is funny because all these large corporate entities are proving (by shooting their own feet) that the Google 'do no evil' mantra is worth more than any advertising campaign....

I can see the future where such 'news articles' cause havoc at the next shareholder's meetings... sadly, that day has not yet arrived, but as the world of commerce gets flatter, it will...

As we all already know...

It's easier to ask for forgivness than for permission.

"software glitch"

The glitch, of course, being that they got caught.

It might've been a 'glitch'

If they use heuristics and other methods for spam filtering that don't always work 100% reliably (I've had legit e-mail end up in the spam bin), it legitimately could have been because their spam filter just decided it was spam, and started dumping it. I'm not defending AOL, I think they suck, but just offering an alternate line of thought. Many ISPs use a human-based filter, the company I work for runs into it all the time, people sign up for our mailing list, and rather than cancel when they're done with it, they just click the "report as spam" button, and then all of our company is on their shit-list, even to those users who want to get our e-mails. Especially if somebody was mass-mailing AOL users that e-mail, it seems likely.

-Jesse

rule #2

private company, well within their rights to censor whatever they want. the people who use AOL do so typically because AOL's easy, it's a name they recognize, and they like the features that are included. these folks are AOL's subscribers, they operate under AOL's license, and they have to abide by AOL's rules. such is the cost of ease.

while i think it's a lousy pr decision, i don't think they're wrong for keeping emails out of their users' inbox that may be harmful to their business. on the contrary, it's quite prudent for them to do so. at some point, business have to be able to make decisions that their customers don't like -- their customers will either leave or they won't.

SPAM?

"Over 300 people reported that they had tried sending AOL subscribers messages that contained a link to www.DearAOL.com"

Sounds like a good candidate for a SPAM filter if you ask me.

Say "goodbye" to your common carrier status, AOL

Say hello to civil and criminal liability.

AOL - irking customers since 1983

AOL exists on name recognition and the ignorance of the customers that choose to use them as an ISP. Nothing new here. As such, this becomes the modus operandi for everything it does... "let's block these mails, but show them as bounced messages... our users are too dumb to know the difference anyway, right?" Still, nothing new here.

But AOL itself is stupid, thinking that EVERYONE is so blissfully unaware of it's business practices. Even moreso, that anyone would be OK with it.

I don't know which is worse... that AOL thinks it can get away with an e-mail tax, that it can censor e-mails opposing it, or that it thought it was perfectly OK to do either (or both).

Hey, AOL... there are still parts of your feet still down there... keep shooting.

The common user needs to understand this situation

I think abuses like this need to be more widely publicized and discussed to educated the masses of ignorant users. I find this just as offensive as having my snail mail filtered (even if AOL is a company and not a federal service). The common user needs to understand this situation.

ISPs in my experience have an attitude that it is their service and the users who depend on it are merely 'subs' (subscribers). While this perception may in fact be accurate, most users see it as 'their service' and view the ISP merely as a provider. So on one hand, most users spend their days thinking they are the 'always right' and 'all powerful due to their dollar' consumer. On the other hand ISPs tend to see their users as 'fat dumb and happy till something needs maintenance'.

This dichotomy can exist, because in the end most users are too ignorant about IT to know what they can reasonably demand and not reasonably demand. A user is just as likely to call AOL to demand help with excel as they are about their mail being filtered.

In the end users don't own the service they are renting, but ISPs need to learn to respect the rights of their users. The only way that is going to happen is if somehow, Joe six pack gets as pissed about this, as he would be if someone was filtering his mail.

Crazy customers

The [ebtx.com] average [afterophelia.com] AOL [isomedia.com] user [babeonhd.com] is [bikepainter.com] reason [faqs.org] to [heferito.com] doubt [aolwatch.org] darwin [anti-aol.org]

Corporations always put shareholders first

Why should you think that AOL should be different? AOL is doing this blocking in order to fulfill the interests of their shareholders. The blocking was removed to fulfill the interests of their shareholders. They are required by law in the US to do so. In fact, if they didn't they could go to jail for failing to put the interests of the shareholders first. Why do you think that so many companies get fined for doing environmental damage? If it's going to save money by destroying some stream somewhere then they will do it for the best interests of the shareholders. If they are caught, well the fines are often nothing compared to the money they can save. AOL is no different than any other corporation in the US. Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Apple, and AOL (along with every other corporation) are all cut from the same cloth. The law made them that way. If you don't like it, CHANGE THE LAW.

Good reason to sign on...

For now, the best thing to do to oppose it is to visit DearAOL http://www.dearaol.com/ [dearaol.com] -- and signup in the right hand gutter "Sign The Letter as an Individual"

Their petition states:
In February 2006, AOL announced that it would accept payment for incoming emails. For these certified emails, it would skip its usual anti-spam filters and guarantee delivery for cash. Our coalition believes that the free passage of email between Internet users is a vital part of what makes the Internet work. When ISPs demand a cut of "pay-to-send" email, they're raising tollbooths on the open Net, interfering with the passage of data by demanding protection money at the gates of their customers' computers.

Friends ...

Friends don't let friends use AOL.

Spread the word. Don't badger [badger, badger ...], but let them know what AOL's doing to ..., er, for them.

Where's the problem?

I don't see any problem with AOL filtering out emails that they consider hurtful. They use the "AOL Constitution" known as TOS (Terms of Service). An AOL subscriber must abide by this TOS contract if s/he wants to continue being a subscriber of AOL's service.

I do not like AOL, and that is why I am not an AOL subscriber.

You join as a subscriber, you play by their rules. Once you join, you make a connection to their network and, that's just it, you are on THEIR NETWORK. It is their land and their 'domain.' They make the laws - their rules. I think you get the point.

I don't see the issue

Ya ya, we all hate AOL, but lets be reasonable here...

This WAS spam was it not? The article clearly says that 300 people reported they couldn't send a copy of this email. If 300 people reported it, I can only imagine how many thousands tried to send it.

If I was a spam filter, and I saw thousands of copies of the same email going out, I'd filter it too.

google?

Here's a question for everybody: Seeing as Google now has a significant stake in AOL, do you think they care for a split second that this reeks of "evil"?

Good news

I'm actually pleased to see this happen. These are the kind of situations that test whether or not people will tolerate having someone else control their information. If the public backlash is sufficient (and it probably won't be just this one incident, at least not for most average customers), people will begin to investigate alternative carriers and technologies, with the unmitigated flow of information in mind, as a product. Fortunately freedom is part of the market economy to one extent or another, so long as there isn't an oligarchy of AOLs and AT&Ts running the show.

Logic

From http://www.dearaol.com/ [dearaol.com]:

AOL's "email tax" is the first step down a slippery slope that will harm the Internet itself.

The "slippery slope" is a well known logical fallacy; why did they include it?

After all, I support their cause, but I can't put my name on a letter written like that!

Nice timing

Mail to AOL from my mail servers just started bouncing again yesterday. The time is coming closer to tell my list members that if they are using AOL for email, they need to find another way if they want to use my lists.

Software Glitch?

I thought AOL is a software glitch.

Wierd

Isn't it so wierd how computer glitches cause random sites like www.DearAOL.com to be banned? We'll never understand these complex computer thingies.

Comment on dearaol.com open letter

I'd like to comment on the ideological rant that is the dearaol.com open letter [dearaol.com]. Quotations are from that source.

We wish to express our serious concern with AOL's adoption of Goodmail's CertifiedEmail, which is a threat to the free and open Internet.

The opening remarks set the theme and tone. Note that the tone is egregiously alarmist: "a threat to the free and open Internet" indeed. Imminent death of the 'net predicted -- again.

This system would create a two-tiered Internet in which affluent mass emailers could pay AOL a fee that amounts to an "email tax" for every email sent, in return for a guarantee that such messages would bypass spam filters and go directly to AOL members' inboxes. Those who did not pay the "email tax" would increasingly be left behind with unreliable service. Your customers expect that your first obligation is to deliver all of their wanted mail, and this plan is a step away from that obligation.

"Two-tiered Internet" is not only an exaggeration, it's an abuse of a current buzzword for propagandist purposes. The process creates an additional class of email service at AOL, specifically, and AOL is not "the Internet". Exactly how many email classes of service currently exist at AOL is anyone's guess, since it's an on-going process to try to classify mail such that wanted mail is delivered, and unwanted mail is not.

"Affluent mass emailers ... bypass spam filters" is a clear insinuation that AOL is selling out their users to spammers. They don't come right out and say it, though: presumably that would be libellous, since it is defamatory and utterly unsubstantiated.

"Email tax" is more propagandist rhetoric. Why is anyone obliged to pay this "tax"? Do AOL have any kind of monopoly on anything other than AOL users?

"Those who did not pay ... left behind with unreliable service." This is true in one sense, and conjecture in another. The sense in which it is true is that the spam problem does seem to be getting worse, so unless you pay for certified email, you are likely to experience a gradual worsening of service -- along with every other email user on the planet. The sense in which it is conjecture is the insinuation (later made explicit) that AOL will deliberately neglect uncertified email for lack of profit motive.

"... this plan is a step away from that obligation." The authors of the letter are depicting it as such. When certified email is portrayed as an anti-phishing technology, however, it is clearly seen as advantageous to AOL's customer base. Financial institutions and other frequent targets of phishing attacks can pay for certification such that their email is delivered, and phish-mail is blocked.

I'd continue, but there's only so much rampant ideological propaganda that I can stomach in one night.

Just trying-out their 'China-safe' feature...

Maybe AOL was just trying to prove to China [slashdot.org] that they were willing and able...

Software Glitch?

Isn't that what Bush is calling the failure in Iraq?

AOL filters lots more....

I run a medium sized mailing list off my server, you-suck.com

I've got several dozen subscribers in the AOL domain, and have consistently have had problems with bouncing / filtering out of AOL. And usually for bogus reasons.

About one year ago they were filtering ALL email that contained tinurl tags, as a "security" measure. Just to show you how totally bogus it was, even the text tinyurl, tiny (space) url , etc were filtered - that is, just the phrase or two words, NOT EVEN A URL!

Recently someone replied to a post with a string of profanity, including the word FUCK several times in a row. Now everyone on the list are good friends, have been for years, and we jerk each others chains a great deal. No problem. For us at least, as AOL didn't see it that way, and banned ALL email from you-suck.com due to what the headers of their bounces claimed were"profanity violations". I know for a fact that nobody on my list complained to AOL as most are family and the rest good friends.

Totally bogus.

I couldn't even email folks exaplaing what was going on from you-suck.com, and had to use Gmail to tell folks about the problem and ask them for their help in getting email from my domain unblocked (AOL won't do squat for non subscribers).

Bingo. I sent out Gmail invites to every one of my AOL subscribers and two weeks ago the last switched over. Problem solved.

But not really - from AOLs pov. Several of those impacted noted that lots of email was helpfully being screened by AOL, including loads of email from what should be whitelisted, top of the shelf domains - CitiBank, Fidelity, yahoo!, I'm not sure what else.

So of these two dozen former AOL subscribers from my list, at least six are now former AOL subscribers as well, and several others are making plans to bolt as well.

And telling all their friends about AOL, the Nanny ISP.

A couple frustrating years of my time dealing with AOL bogus bounces, and I managed to get a bunch of folks off AOL.

Works for me.

about that dearaol.com junk.

first off, looks at all those large companies that signed up against this idea- i bet they would like to keep sending mass emails to you for free. Aol will only deter them. Plus aol isnt the only email site, theres google, yahoo, and number of other companies. Aol also needs to break its agreement not to sell data to others, unless it wants multimillion or billion dollar lawsuits. I think the idea of charging people sending 1000 email at a time is a good idea. Seriously, I wont be doing that or even 100 email at one shot. Ive gotten alot of those Pen15 enlargement emails by the bulks and it isnt pretty sight-charging them would be reduce their emails sent which I would like. Spammers could send out smaller bulks so maybe the next thing is the amounts of bulks sent out per day will be charged. Seriously, who sends their friends 50 emails per day.

Any AOL customers here?

If you are an AOL customer, please can you explain why you use them? I don't get it...
They've always been just an ISP with an annoying and redundant layer between users and the internet. They just get in the way and don't seem to bring any value to anyone with half a clue about the internet and associated freely available tools.

Back in the 80's, the public weren't generally very computer-savvy so AOL got away with it, but surely in these days of widely available broadband, ubiquitous email & web access, they are just a dinosaur now?
Why do so many still give AOL credability and money?

your rights online?

What does this have to do with rights? This isn't the government censoring anyone. This is just a business move, and a rather poor one.

Who cares if it's true?

Friends don't let friends use AOL any more than they would let a friend go out in public with doofus written on his forehead in Magic Marker(tm), and for the same reason.

aol is not the internet

At first, we only had the BBS. You had your local dude with a modem and a terminal server, and the big fancy ones like prodigy, compuserve, and aol. The local ones were a lot like usenet, usually free or low cost subscription and had a lot of pirated software. AOL was the first BBS to offer graphics and target non-technical users. When the internet grew to critical mass, prodigy, compuserve, and others evenutally died out since users of those services were savvy enough to know they were unnessesary. Many providers added internet service to keep customers, but it wasn't enough when cable and dsl came around.
AOL users became addicted to the interface and content provided to them - much like an everquest player - and stayed.

That is the first of many reasons why aol continues to exist, in spite of our gripe. Next:

Brand management, according to wikipedia:

A good brand name should:
* be legally protectable
* be easy to pronounce
* be easy to remember
* be easy to recognize
* attract attention
* suggest product benefits (e.g.: Easy-Off) or suggest usage
* suggest the company or product image
* distinguish the product's positioning relative to the competition.

Nearly all of AOL's target market are vulnerable to brand management (the masses). The brand AOL is a perfect example of good branding. America Online - AOL, easy to remember, it's how america goes online! Ick. Do not underestimate the power of brand meaning!

The company knows their market and user base. They know how to manipulate and keep them. The AOL for broadband is proof of that - and since this switch - they are even less of an ISP now. They are a content provider. You should expect (and require) your ISP to give you all your emails unfiltered and let you configure your client to do the filtering.

I would never trust a message filter out of my control. Especiallly one controlled by a massive media group like time warner. If I wanted that, I'd watch fox news.

Re:How do they do this?

Surely you're not familiar with how hard it is to cancel an AOL account, then. They'll continue to bill you for months, and generally you'll have to block payment after they go to your CC.