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AOL SNS Compared To Passport

stuccoguy writes "AOL has their own universal profiler and logon service called Screen Name Service. It looks an awful lot like MS Passport and raises a lot of the same privacy concerns. AOL makes the same weak assurances about not sharing profile information without permission and does not require participating sites to have any specific privacy policy. I don't know how long this service has been around, but I thought it odd that so much attention has been given to the flaws in passport and I have not heard anything about what looks like an identical service by AOL."

3 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Speaking off Passport-like software... by camusflage · · Score: 2

    It's the same exact thing as Passport, just Netscape instead of Microsoft.

    Only it's not "just" Netscape, it's actually AOL. Even if it's not integrated, I'd be very surprised if the next major rev of Netscape, assuming there is one outside of an AOL client, doesn't force you to sign up for AOL's SNS.

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  2. Speaking off Passport-like software... by Alakaboo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Anyone installed Netscape 6.1 yet?

    I installed it on XP RC2 (so I don't know if it's a global thing, or specific because I was running XP) and it made me sign up for a Netscape.net account before I could use the software. Maybe there was a way to circumvent it, but I was too in-shock at the time think about it.

    It's the same exact thing as Passport, just Netscape instead of Microsoft.

  3. Well, it could include... by DragonMagic · · Score: 2

    These nasty emails I get from Time/Warner RoadRunner as well. Just today got a fully animated email from them which was sent to all customers, it seems, about the Osmosis Jones flick. So I guess even those who don't directly have AOL access get spam, so what's stopping the horrible spam from filtering to accounts of SMS direct from AOL and its companies? I'd be more concerned with that than what personal information, if any, they got from me, they shared.

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    Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield