(UPDATES: Don’t miss the Mar. 15 and Mar. 28 updates to this article.)
Here’s yet another installment in the ongoing saga of AOL’s delusions of grandeur. I just posted this to my del.icio.us page of recommended reading, but this one is so ludricrous it warrants a special mention here.
Apparently, at some point AOL quietly unveiled new terms of service for its popular AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) chat service. Basically, AOL is claiming unlimited rights to all content and ideas transmitted via AIM. That’s right if, say, you use AIM to discuss a new idea for a business, book, deal, etc., AOL is claiming the right to use, publish, or sell your ideas or plans without notifying or compensating you. At least, the way the AIM TOS is currently written leaves the door open for such abuses.
I wish this was a joke. It’s not. Whether or not such unabashed greed and thievery is legally enforceable (and I have serious doubts about that), it’s certainly insulting enough to warrant abandoning AIM immediately and permanently. I don’t use AIM much, but I have just uninstalled AIM from my computer. I recommend that you do so too, and tell all the AIM users you know about this.
No, I don’t think this is an overreaction. Here’s why…
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