AOL: We're Not Spying on AIM Users

The Llama King writes "America Online tells the Houston Chronicle's TechBlog that, despite a recent Slashdot posting to the contrary, AOL Instant Messenger's terms of service do not imply that the company has the right to use private IM communications, and the section quoted in the Slashdot article applies only to posts in public forums -- a common provision in most online publishers' terms of service. AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein says flatly: 'AOL does not read person-to-person communications.' He also says AIM communiques are never stored on AOL's hard drives. The original Slashdot item was linked throughout the blogosphere -- it will be interesting to see if AOL can extinguish this fire." (Read more below.)

It could be that they don't actually take advantage of its terms, but the Terms of Service seem to broadly favor AIM's right to do exactly what they say they're not doing; rather than drawing any distinction between IM services and public forum posts, the actual terms seem clearly to apply to all AIM products. Here's how they put it:

For purposes of these Terms of Service, the term "AIM Products" shall mean AIM software (whether preinstalled, on a medium or offered by download), AIM services, AIM websites (including, without limitation, AIM.COM and AIMTODAY.COM) and all other software, features, tools, web sites and services provided by or through AIM from America Online, Inc. and its business divisions (e.g., Netscape) (collectively "AOL") and AOL's third-party vendors.

AOL could probably erase many of the worries about conversation snooping if they would provide a definition of the words "post" and "submit" as used in the following paragraph of their ToS (which says it applies to "any AIM Product"), and explicitly disclaimed an "irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote" the contents of online conversations:

You may only post Content that you created or which the owner of the Content has given you. You may not post or distribute Content that is illegal or that violates these Terms of Service. By posting or submitting Content on any AIM Product, you represent and warrant that (i) you own all the rights to this Content or are authorized to use and distribute this Content on the AIM Product and (ii) this Content does not and will not infringe any copyright or any other third-party right nor violate any applicable law or regulation.

Comments

i like being spyed on

[Anonymous Coward]

i like to live dangerously

(parody of their stupid commercials)

Storage

[CleverNickedName]

It really wouldn't take much to store all AIM communiqués.
I'm sure there's a clever compression tool out there which can take advantage of common data such as "ME TOO!" and "I'M OFF TO MASTURBATE. BRB."

Everything being in uppercase helps too.

Re:Surprise?

[ForestGrump]

Damnit! who the hell is knocking on my door at 5am?

AOL cares

[d'oh89]

Amercia Online would like you to know that the authors of the recent changes to the Terms of Service have been sacked. We have replaced them with a group of llamas and an unlaiden swallow. Please continue to use our free service and tell all of your friends that it is now safe again to use our software. We promise to only disclose Instant Message logs with a court order. As those are extremely hard to get nowadays (excluding DMCA, Patriot Act, etc.) there should be no need to worry. And please take off your tinfoil hat now.

Sincerely,

Your neighborhood AOL conglomerate

So AOL is officially spyware, right?

[Junior J. Junior III]

When will my anti-spyware apps start seeing AIM as spyware, and offering to remove it for me?

Thank god

[plastic.person]

Once again I can whip out my cock and webcam-cyber on AIM with the send images feature. Knowing that some tech in Virginia is watching kinda kills the mood for me. (My penis is camera shy.)

Remember, this is Slashdot!

[agraupe]

It is our job to be completely paranoid about something that most of us probably misunderstand!

I heard someone being paranoid about people intercepting his communications through unshielded telephone lines if Broadband-over-Powerlines was offered. I think we've gone too far. Some paranoia keeps you alert, but you people are running around with a tinfoil hat, just bent on finding a big corporation that you think is trying to screw you. MS, Valve, AIM and so forth. The minute any one of these actually does something to any one of you, I'd be interested to hear about it. Until then, there's no reason to have this hive of paranoia.

Re:whatever.

[untaken_name]

no, i do those from time to time...just to see who can tell the difference between typos and spelling errors. Better luck next time :)

Re:Kidding me...

[justforaday]

Comments are owned by the Poster.

Remember kids, all your base are belong to him...

Of course

[joel2600]

"He also says AIM communiques are never stored on AOL's hard drives."

of course not... they don't have the need... all of the "communiques" are stored on the NSA's servers. /super obvious?