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

Right...

[maotx]

"We're not evil. We promise. Trust us. Just because we say we can doesn't mean we will."

I personally use AIM but that doesn't mean that I'm going to trust any communications I want private with a giant multi-billion company.

Re:Right...

[the_mad_poster]

First of all, it's irrelevant whether or not it seems "unreasonable" for AOL to take and redistribute your private information. The point is that they said they're willing to do it, so it should be assumed that they will. If someone points a gun at my head and says "don't worry, it's not loaded", I'm still going to assume it's loaded on the basis that they wouldn't have put a gun to my head if they didn't intend to kill me. People's actions do, indeed, speak louder than words, and AOL has obviously taken the initiative to decide that, if they see fit, they're going to take your communications and resuse them for their own personal gain.

And his complaint targeting a private company was perfectly valid. Corporate entities have shown an amazing lack of common sense, appropriate discretion, self restraint, and moral clarity in the time they've existed. Whereas an individual citizen has little or nothing to gain from spying on your point to point communications, a coporation most certainly has everything to gain. They exist for the sole purpose of making money, and in a capitalist system such as the one AOL exists in, moral fiber has no place. If they intercept valuable data, as a corporation, the only thing stopping them from taking it and using it for their own purposes are laws. They're effectively saying here that they refuse to be bound by any laws, so it can only be assumed that the intent is to glean valuable data and reuse it for, perhaps, marketing research.

The conclusion here is quite simple. If a corporation refuses to be bound to appropriate, decent behavior by the law, it won't act appropriately or decently. Individuals have no such problem in most cases because, unlike corporations, they have little or no need for the sorts of things that would require them to be bound.

His jab at a company for being a company was perfectly legitimate, even if he wasn't sure why that was so.

too late..

[TheHawke]

I already uninstalled my AIM and done gone somewhere else with my IMing.

Their PR parrots and Legals should have collaborated BEFORE they opened their big mouths on this matter. Now they are having to play catchup, in a BIG way.

Bad timing aoHell. In this day and age, that kind of legal play can lose you a couple of million users as fast as your CSRs (customer service reps) can field them.

Surprise?

[mattmentecky]

Why are people walking around surprised that AOL would, at the very least, not guarantee absolute privacy in conversation?

The best way to deal with this is to always treat any conversation, ESPECIALLY over the internet, and ESPECIALLY on a service like AIM as insecure. Period.

Re:Surprise?

[TheoMurpse]

There is a difference between what you are saying -- what a person says via AIM is insecure -- and what the terms of service actually allow -- that AOL has the right to go as far as publish your writings in a book if they wanted to.

That is what people are surprised about -- that AOL would have the gall to allow themselves something like that.

Lawyers

[MagPulse]

This is another case of agreements being way beyond what a company needs, but lawyers saying "well what about this one bizarre case that might happen once in a hundred years where you might want to use this clause?" So the company makes an agreement like this one, not counting on geeks like us to actually read it and cause trouble.