Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the the-value-of-non-interoperability dept.
Faceprint writes: "The developers of gaim have posted another article about the blocking of Jabber and gaim by AOL. It answers a lot of questions that repeatedly get asked on slashdot, and explains the situation rather well. Definitely worth a read."
His opening argument, about how AOL giving away TOC negates any argument about third-party clients having no right to use the system, is invalid. It's like arguing that because the bank allows you access to the money in the vault via a teller, you have the right to go in the vault and muck around as you like. Hey, it's less resource intensive, because they don't need this proxy (teller) to service your requests, right?
The fact of the matter is that the general public starts off with absolutely ZERO rights to use AOL's servers. AOL then allows specific forms of access. If they only want to allow certain people certain types of access (via TOC versus OSCAR), it's well within their rights. As much as you would like to think it is, instant messaging is NOT a public accommodation.
-Todd
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"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
America Online announced today that, in keeping with its recent instant messaging policy, it will no longer allow outside users to send email to any address within the @aol.com domain.
A corporate spokesperson said, "We run these mail servers. It costs us money to do so. Why should we allow outsiders, non-customers, to send mail to our servers?"
Another plan, to disallow any TCP/IP packets to pass through AOL's routers if the source or destination are not both AOL customers, was in the works....
Slashdot Mirror
His opening argument, about how AOL giving away TOC negates any argument about third-party clients having no right to use the system, is invalid. It's like arguing that because the bank allows you access to the money in the vault via a teller, you have the right to go in the vault and muck around as you like. Hey, it's less resource intensive, because they don't need this proxy (teller) to service your requests, right?
The fact of the matter is that the general public starts off with absolutely ZERO rights to use AOL's servers. AOL then allows specific forms of access. If they only want to allow certain people certain types of access (via TOC versus OSCAR), it's well within their rights. As much as you would like to think it is, instant messaging is NOT a public accommodation.
-Todd
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"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
From Unauthorized Use
DULLES, VA
America Online announced today that, in keeping with its recent instant messaging policy, it will no longer allow outside users to send email to any address within the @aol.com domain.
A corporate spokesperson said, "We run these mail servers. It costs us money to do so. Why should we allow outsiders, non-customers, to send mail to our servers?"
Another plan, to disallow any TCP/IP packets to pass through AOL's routers if the source or destination are not both AOL customers, was in the works....
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again