AOL Changing IM Terms of Service

gpmac writes "AOL has responded to the recent slashdot attention. America Online Inc. plans to make three small but significant modifications to the terms of service for its AIM instant messaging product to head off a firestorm of privacy-related criticisms. The tweaks to the terms of service will be made in the section titled "Content You Post" and will explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL."

Comments

Nice

[wandernotlost]

They must have read my complaints in my away message.

Re:Nice

[Hobadee]

*applauds*

They must have read my complaints in my away message.
Same here! They shall now also be able to not read my praise of this in my new away message!

Kudos AOL! It's nice and refreshing to see a large company listen to the general (err... Slashdot) public. (Even if it was a misunderstanding to begin with.)

Re:Nice

[geminidomino]

Same here
</AOL>

Hrm... the irony of using those particular pseudo-tags to respond to this story..

Re:Nice

[madmancarman]

They must have read my complaints in my away message.

No, but they copyrighted it.

They came, they saw....

[Richard_at_work]

and they fixed. Kudos to AOL for this one. Now, if only they could do more about the spammers on their network...

Re:They came, they saw....

[MrDomino]

I'm actually kind of disappointed by this; the new terms seem more misleading to me than the old. It's important to keep in mind on IM services--and on the Internet in general--that anything you transmit unencrypted can be accessed and read by the general public. Now that AOL has stated that it won't read peoples' IMs, the uninformed masses have had their false sense of privacy restored. What, however, happens when the information stored (but not read) is requested of AOL by subpoena? What if the information is cracked out of the company by a malicious user? What of the several computers that have access to your messages in plain text as they are routed through the Internet?

The only way to keep your sensitive data and conversations private on the web is to encrypt them; any statement of privacy over plain-text media is at best erroneous, and at worst dangerously misleading.

Re:They came, they saw....

[Reziac]

Don't know about you, but I haven't received a spam that was genuinely sent by an AOL server in 6 or 7 years. Occasional spoofs, yeah, but no real ones.

Re:They came, they saw....

[corvair2k1]

The issue with AOL wasn't that they were reading things. The issue was that if I wrote a poem, sent it to a friend, my poem could be published by AOL without my explicit permission.

Think of all of the musicians who send their songs to their buds. AOL could make a compilation album out of the really good ones, if they somehow could get copies of Direct IMs.

Re:They came, they saw....

[LnxAddct]

AOL is often criticized for being overly aggressive against spam. If your IP sends spam to AOL users and 200 of them complain, your blocked. Aol also checks the spam score and time interval between outgoing emails as well and will quickly shut down your account and let you know that someone has stolen access to it. AOL does not mess around with spam, or viruses for that matter. They are one of the largest ISPs, and thank god they do what they do cause it seems everyother ISP is too scared to step on toes. If every ISP acted how AOL did, spam would be nearly nonexistant.
Regards,
Steve

Re:They came, they saw....

[Everleet]

If every ISP acted how AOL did, spam would be nearly nonexistant.

So would the internet.

Re:They came, they saw....

[itchy92]

That's why all my lyrical snippets were ending up in crappy pop-punk songs...

And here I thought I shared the same angst as Good Charlotte... oh cold, cruel life.

Re:They came, they saw....

[AmberBlackCat]

I wonder if they reserve the right to keep any images or files sent through the messenger.

Re:They came, they saw....

[MutantHamster]

The only way to keep your sensitive data and conversations private on the web is to encrypt them; any statement of privacy over plain-text media is at best erroneous, and at worst dangerously misleading.

Encrypt them? Why does that sound familliar? Hmm... RTFA comes to mind.

Re:They came, they saw....

[digitalchinky]

I haven't been able to send a single email TO aol for several years... Though this is because they refuse email unless an rDNS entry is present. :-)

Re:They came, they saw....

[davidsyes]

Who'd've thought?

But, I can imagine they are doing this for other reasons. (No, no tin-foil stuff going on heree...)

Suppose they are getting hit by some warrants for echelon's/carnivore's or echevore's//carnilon's replacement. Now, this is a significant drain on their resources. Why? Because the government live wiretap was supposed to be automated. Just drop it in, plug it in, and leave the rest to us...

OTOH...

Maybe some non NatSec organs are draining AOL's time. They issue subpoenas like crazy, warrants like they're magic bullets, etc, for discovery, but the archives wanted are off-site, maybe in Cheyenne, 1,250 feet down, in some unnamed alleyway.

So, just zip it all up, encrypted, and defy the court or nosy attorney and bog down the hell out of THEM.

Actually, it's rather good that they offer back the privacy rights already accorded, but stripped by various courts and nosy lawyers or companies bringing frivolous lawsuits or engaging in fishing expeditions...

Hmmm... Turns foil back on...

Re:They came, they saw....

[Reziac]

Where does your email go thru? Mine is thru earthlink and 1and1.com/perfora.net, and has no problem reaching AOLers.

BTW, gorgeous wallpaper graphics!!

Re:They came, they saw....

[Hestas Coyote]

Or you can do what I decided to do, and smart host relay off my ISPs SMTP server.

Yes, that was a bit off topic.

Take THAT AOL!

[chrislees]

Slashdot always wins in the wrong run!

Too little, too late

[Capt'n Hector]

I've already stopped flirting with girls on IM. Although, I am working on a secret code. People that intercept my instant messages won't be able to understand a word I'm saying. I'll replace "you" with "u", "that's funny" with "lol", "skate" witk "sk8." Things like that. All in the name of privacy.

Re:Too little, too late

[TheFlyingGoat]

Unfortunately, Microsoft has already shown people how to decode these messages.

Re:Too little, too late

[Feynman]

--
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?

Maybe you'd be better off encoding all of your instant messages as quotes from British comedies translated into Latin.

Re:Too little, too late

[Hatta]

Unfortunately, Microsoft has already shown people how to decode [microsoft.com] these messages.

Circumventing a content protection scheme. Shame on them. Where's the DMCA when you need it?

Re:Too little, too late

[jaavaaguru]

Without touching the latin dictionary, that's a Python quote, isn't it?

Re:Too little, too late

[nine-times]

Foiled again! I'll get you Microsoft, you and that dog of yours!

hmmmm... maybe then I'll construct a language where I'll drop consonants from the ends of my words, and on occasional words, I'll take the first consonant-sound of the word I mean to say, and replace the rest of the word with "izzle". It'll be so inane that Microsoft will never guess it....

fo' shizzle.

Re:Too little, too late

[jc42]

Sorry; the DMCA protects big corporations from criminals like you and me. It doesn't protect you and me from big corporations that decode our communications.

Not unless you have a few spare millions of bucks to spend on a decade-long series of court cases.

Re:Too little, too late

[justforaday]

How'd you ever figure that out?!?

Re:Too little, too late

[canwaf]

I have a very similar system.

First I move all the consonants up to the first vowel in the word I am "translating" to the end of the word. After that is completely I append "ay" to the end of the word.

Microsoft will never know is being written... ever!

Coupled with the unbreakable rot 13 code, it's almost impossible to read.

Lbhnl nirunl bganl hfgwnl rnqenl vfgunl ragraprfnl.

Re:Too little, too late

[coolcold]

t|-|3Y r $t!11 4 10|\|9 \/\/4y 2 90 LLOLOLLOLO!11!1!!!

Re:Too little, too late

[eomnimedia]

Jung'f jebat jvgu EBG13?

Re:Too little, too late

[xant]

I almost choked when I read "Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike. Using "Z" for a final letter S, and 'X' for words ending in the letters C or K is common."

This isn't a parent's primer, it's a fucking retard's primer.

Re:Too little, too late

[Short Circuit]

Lbhnl nirunl bganl hfgwnl rnqenl vfgunl ragraprfnl.

naanjnl rgonl?

Re:Too little, too late

[Short Circuit]

And, Beth? Next time daddy can't get the computer to work, tell him it's broken, and tell him to give it to you to play with, and send him to go and buy an iMac. It's a computer especially built for idio--um...

For mommies and daddies.

--Wes, from Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.

Re:Too little, too late

[Short Circuit]

"swallonis," "Africus," and "Europaeus" were the words whose meanings I was able to guess.

Re:Too little, too late

[Jason Ford]

How true! Still, it's the best government money can buy. I think the Ironic Times explained it well in their latest issue:

Last week we mistakenly reported that lobbyists, representing minimum wage workers who contributed heavily to lawmakers' reelection campaigns, used their clout to force a robust increase in the minimum wage. In fact these workers have no lobbyists, no money to contribute and no clout to use, and the bill favors business interests. We apologize for any confusion resulting from the error.

Re:Too little, too late

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

411 y0ur 8453 4r3 8310n9 70 u5!

Re:Too little, too late

[jaavaaguru]

I didn't reply because i thought he was being sarcastic.

Bearing in mind I've not looked at Latin for a while, didn't do it at school, and i've just got back from the pub, I'd say the original post was, word for word, "which" "do you think" "swallow" "is" "fastest" [something] "African" "or" "european" ?

Re:Too little, too late

[Danga]

The first series is of particular concern, as their use could be an indicator that your teenager is involved in the theft of intellectual property, particularly licensed software.

Wow, now you can see the REAL reason Microsoft created this page!

From TFA...

[leonmergen]

"We're not making any policy changes. We're making some linguistic changes to clarify certain things and explain it a little better to our users," AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein told eWEEK.com.

Hmmm, is it just me or does this look like making things look better ? From my experience, lawyers usually pay a lot of attention on the things they write, and especially these kind of mistakes are the ones that plainly don't happen in published legal documents...

... unless they wanted to trick you into it, ofcourse.

Re:From TFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

This article seemed slightly, but significantly different than an update that was on cnet's news yesterday...

That article (sorry, too lazy to find it now) seemed to indicate that the anti-privacy things in the TOS were copied/pasted in from the Hotornot service, and they were meant to apply only to things that you posted on a site like that, not IM chat; it seemed to emphasize that it was an error that needed to be clarified as not referring to IMs, not merely a linguistic error.

Re:From TFA...

[Elwood P Dowd]

From my experience, lawyers usually pay a lot of attention on the things they write, and especially these kind of mistakes are the ones that plainly don't happen in published legal documents... ... unless they wanted to trick you into it, ofcourse.

No, you are full of crap. If a lawyer says, "Sign this document, and we'll execute contract A," and then has you sign a document actually only authorizing contract B, the signed document would be thrown out in court. If the lawyer knew about it, he might be liable, and he might be guilty of fraud.

Once AOL publically said, "No, we have not and will not read AIM chats," it better have been the truth, otherwise they could get turned inside out in court. No matter what their privacy policy said.

Re:From TFA...

[91degrees]

It seems that legal and marketing simply didn't talk to each other.

The legal department wanted to be sure they had the right to do everything they might do, even if they're not remotely likely to do so. Their only concern is that they don't get sued.

Unfortunately they didn't consider what the response public would be is someone actually read the legalese. Considering that isn;t their job. The public image of AOL is a marketting matter. Not a legal matter.

As is often the case in large companies, the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.

Re:From TFA...

[leonmergen]

No, you are full of crap. If a lawyer says, "Sign this document, and we'll execute contract A," and then has you sign a document actually only authorizing contract B, the signed document would be thrown out in court. If the lawyer knew about it, he might be liable, and he might be guilty of fraud.

But in this case, isn't it rather one contract you agreed to, which had a certain sentence which could be interpreted as 'all your messages are belong to us', which they now changed ?

As in, if the lawyer knew about this, how is he guilty when people could have read the privacy policy, and agreed to it ( ok, true, very few people actually *do* read it ) ?

Re:From TFA...

[EvanED]

From what some people posted in the original /. discussion, it appears that the terms never applied to IM communication.

I think the problem is not that it wasn't worded clearly before from a legal standpoint, but that people weren't paying enough attention to the part that said that the new terms only applay to this, this, and that other service, which didn't include AIM proper.

Re:From TFA...

[Lord Kano]

No, you are full of crap. If a lawyer says, "Sign this document, and we'll execute contract A," and then has you sign a document actually only authorizing contract B, the signed document would be thrown out in court. If the lawyer knew about it, he might be liable, and he might be guilty of fraud.

Only if you have proof to back up your claim. Otherwise it's your word against the lawyer's. And it would require you to stand in open court and say "Yes, your honor. I am an idiot who signed a document without reading it."

LK

Re:From TFA...

[mzwaterski]

If admitting you are an idiot (which you are for not reading) gets you out of a difficult legal issue, I'd think that you'd suck up your pride and admit it. The real issue isn't whether you can admit it, its whether a judge will believe you.

Re:From TFA...

[Elwood P Dowd]

But in this case, isn't it rather one contract you agreed to, which had a certain sentence which could be interpreted as 'all your messages are belong to us', which they now changed?

Yes, exactly, except that they also publicly claimed that their privacy policy could not be interpreted as "all your messages are belong to us". If someone went after AOL for repurposing their AIM conversation, and AOL, in court, said, "But look at our privacy policy!", plaintiff would only have to say, "But look at your press release, you lying sonofabitch." Judges brook no such bullshit.

Re:From TFA...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Or "Yes, your honor, I am a totally ordinary person that could not properly interpret the legal meaning of this document."

And that's why you record all your conversations with lawyers :)

Re:From TFA...

[jc42]

The tweaks to the terms of service will be made in the section titled "Content You Post" and will explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL.

Amidst all this talk of privacy, people seem to be missing the significant copyright issue in this story. AOL is claiming that they own all the rights, i.e., they own the copyright, for anything "posted" to a discussion.

So if you copy a brief exchange in an AOL discussion, and send the exchange to someone else (or post it elsewhere), you have violated AOL's claimed copyright for that text.

Ordinarily, public discussions are, well, public. If you're using AOL, this may not be true. You may have no right to keep a copy of a discussion or to share it with anyone else. As soon as you post a message, it becomes AOL's property, and you have no right to use it at all.

This isn't the first time that this sort of thing has happened. Remember a year or two back, when MSN customers discovered that MSN was extracting things from customer email (mostly images) and using them in advertising? MSN claimed that they could do this legally, because their TOS stated clearly that any data stored on an msn.com machine was MSN's property.

There was a big fuss, and MSN seems to have backed off. But this sort of claim on customers' messages has yet to be tested in court, and many corporations are including such clauses in their contracts. This may be legal in the US and other countries. If so, you may not own the copyright to your own messages. Sending a message may constitute assigning the copyright to the message service (AOL in this case).

OTOH, if you think the file-sharing issue is fun, wait until AOL starts firing off C&D letters to people who make copies of their own IM discussions ...

Re:From TFA...

[HiThere]

In a way you are right. With enough time and money in such a case you can prevail. But often such clauses could get a case thrown out before even being accepted as "obviously frivolous". (I'm not quite sure what I mean here...I might mean it would be hard to find a lawyer willing to take the case, partially because when he first looked at it it would be an obvious loser, and partially because it would be a threat to his license).

But even where you are right, this makes any case much more expensive to prosecute. Yes, you can win eventually, but eventually can take a long time. Just look at SCOX...that case was a clear loser before it was even in court, SCOX has come up with NO evidence, and IBM is still being made to pay millions in legal fees (including discovery costs). And SCOX has no case at all. NONE! They aren't even consistent about what they're claiming IBM did!

Re:From TFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

The job of the legal department should NOT be to ensure absolute protection nfor the company from anything possible.

That's as silly as saying that the QA deprtment should never allow shipping a product with bugs.

In a well run company, both departments will make educated and considered tradeoffs that evaluate both the marketing issues and the specifics that they're trying to protect.

Re:From TFA...

[EvanED]

IBM is still being made to pay millions in legal fees (including discovery costs)

Legal fees?!

I thought IBM was just paying for our entertainment!

Re:From TFA...

[Trillan]

Before spreading any more FUD, I suggest you actually read the part of the TOS in question. It is not perfectly clear, but it is clear enough that this entire series of events should never have occured.

This incident has proven to me that not only is the cliche about nature building better idiots is true, but in today's web space there are a seemingly infinite number of bloggers who will run a panic story without checking the facts first.

Makes you wonder...

[tabkey12]

how the change ever was added in the first place? Overzealous legal department?

Re:Makes you wonder...

[TorrentNinja]

I think this is pretty standard practice for any company. Like contract negotiation without negotiation with anyone. The company can construct a totally one-sided contract that people hardly ever read and just accept.

Once and a while people call BS and they might make an adjustment.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[Tsunayoshi]

Don't kid yourself, the only reason it was changed to exlude the private IM'ing was because of the bad publicity and outcry all over the internet and news channels...they are trying to spin it off as a 'mistake' to save public face.

"Justin Uberti, chief architect for AIM, also joined the discussion, admitting the controversial section of the terms of service was "vague" and needed to be reworded"

If he thought it was so vague, why the hell was the wordage ever approved in the 1st place? Probably because the guy never looked at them before they became (almost) frontpage news.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[jthayden]

When I was doing independent contract work, I took a gig where they wanted me to sign that any work I did belonged to them. It didn't matter if it was done on my own machine during hours I didn't bill to them. Needless to say, I crossed out those parts out of the contract before I signed. The responded that I couldn't do that and that I had to sign it as is or else I couldn't have the job. I told them that I couldn't do that since I had other clients and did also did work on my own projects. After quite a bit of complaining and threatening on their part, they eventually agreed and the parts were removed. It was amussing though that they kept threatening that I couldn't have the contract unless I signed it 'as is'. It was clear they had nobody else to do the work since they kept coming back.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

sup karma whore, did you get enough referrals?

Re:Makes you wonder...

[Trillan]

Why wonder when the reason is readily available if you're willing to actaully investigate? Or even just read the posted TOS to begin with, rather than someone's interpretation of it?

The clause covers POSTINGS, not MESSAGES.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[benna]

But "postings" was not defined, and it was unclear whether or not it applied to IMs. This clears up the ambiguity.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[Trillan]

Oh, I agree, the change won't hurt anything. I just find the "Victory for freedom and bloggers!" angle a bit tough to take.

I don't know about you all ...

[SengirV]

... But I don't have too many NON user-to-user conversations using IM. So am I free to say and do anything(talking to another on IM that is) without it ever coming back to haunt me?

Re:I don't know about you all ...

[Richard_at_work]

When you signed in, when you signed out, when you became idle, when you became busy etc etc.

Re:I don't know about you all ...

[xlsior]

[quote]When you signed in, when you signed out, when you became idle, when you became busy etc etc.[/quote] Your IP address.

Re:I don't know about you all ...

[ccharles]

So am I free to say and do anything(talking to another on IM that is) without it ever coming back to haunt me?

You are if you use an off-the-record plugin.

Re:I don't know about you all ...

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL may not be reading it, but your isp, your friend's isp and the US government still are.

Re:I don't know about you all ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, as long as no one is using a packet sniffer, keylogger or has a search warrant for your computer or the computer on the other end...

bye bye

[donnyspi]

{Sound effect: chi-tunk}
donnyspi signed off at 13:56:26 PM

AOL's new motto

[Zemplar]

"We AIM to Please!"

From information gathered by reading your private messages, we've decided to retract former policies.

Re:AOL's new motto

[DeafDumbBlind]

Isn't that the motto of the Assassins conspiracy?

Re:AOL's new motto

[Zemplar]

Thought that one was "If you run, you'll only die tired"?

Re:AOL's new motto

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I saw that one in a public restroom: "We aim to please. You aim too, please."

Re:AOL's new motto

[halltk1983]

Naaa, thats the LAPD's

For once

[a_greer2005]

The collective voices of thousands of "Little People"(tm) made a differance on a huge company. This is a trend that I would love to see continue accross the board, a large company careing about their customers.
Props to AOL, looks like I can once again log in and chat without fear of them retaining rights to it.

Re:For once

[Anonymous Coward]

Next it would be great if we could have elections that aren't rigged. Maybe even paper ballots that can be counted by a human instead of pure electronic magic that has to be blinded trusted.

Re:For once

[EvilStein]

Actually, it's more like "A bunch of bloggers got their panties in a knot over basically nothing" - that went into place over a *year* ago.

Re:For once

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken... AOL does not care about it's customers, at least not in the sense you intend. AOL cares only about not losing members because lost members equals lost profits and lost market share.

In this case, the little people won because AOL, unlike some other huge corporations, somewhat understands that thousands of little people can make another dent in their daily-shrinking member base.

Re:For once

[Anonymous Coward]

That or the GNAA.

Seriously, they once got aol to change something, I think it was their customer service setup or something, by spamming the shit out of them.

lots of little people do make a big difference.

I prefer fire ants though, let a few thousand of those things loose at AOL and watch them change things.

Re:For once

[Trillan]

It was more like "Oh my gosh, these people are so stupid that they can't read! We'd better dumb down or TOS a little!"

Not that I mind having an easier-to-comprehend TOS, but if people could just read this never would have happened.

Re:For once

[Frogking]

I don't think the "Little People" had anything to do with it. AOL, just like any other company, just cares about the bottom line. I can imagine the advertisers freaking out and calling AOL, saying, "You numbskulls! We don't want XYZ Book Club or ABC Mortgage company associated with loss of privacy!" AOL just did what they had to do to keep the money flowing in. And to the advertisers I say this: I would NEVER associate your products with loss of privacy, since I've already blocked the domains that AOL's ads come from at my firewall anyway!

From TFA...

[daveschroeder]

Not to quote the lion's share of the article here, but there are some things that need to be seen...

The tweaks to the terms of service will be made in the section titled "Content You Post" and will explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL.

"We're not making any policy changes. We're making some linguistic changes to clarify certain things and explain it a little better to our users," AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein told eWEEK.com.

The modifications will use similar language from the AIM privacy policy to "make it clear that AOL does not read private user-to-user communications," Weinstein said.

[...]

More importantly, Weinstein said a blunt and inelegant line that reads "You waive any right to privacy" will be deleted altogether.

"That's a phrase that should not have been in that section in the first place. It clearly caused confusion, with good reason," Weinstein conceded.

[...]

Justin Uberti, chief architect for AIM, also joined the discussion, admitting the controversial section of the terms of service was "vague" and needed to be reworded.

Uberti explained on his Weblog that the amount of IM traffic on the AIM network "is on the order of hundreds of gigabytes a day."

"It would be very costly, and we have no desire to record all IM traffic. We don't do it," Uberti wrote.

For AIM users who remain distrustful, Uberti pointed out that the application offers Direct IM (aka Send IM Image) and Secure IM in all recent versions.

"In other words, you can send your IMs in such a way that they never go through our servers, and/or are encrypted with industry-standard SSL and S/MIME technology. I know this since I designed these features. There are no backdoors; I would not have permitted any," Uberti said.

Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have already proved in court, many many times, that you have no expectation of privacy in such things as email and instant messaging. I'm not sure why were even discussing this.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Minna Kirai]

They have already proved in court, many many times, that you have no expectation of privacy in such things as email and instant messaging.

I haven't seen L&O for many years. Can anyone summarize an episode where email-privacy was featured?

(That kind of show is too repetitive to deserve an entry on Television Without Pity, otherwise I could search for it there)

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[MrLint]

No expectation of privacy isnt the same as giving AOL to essentially republish everyone in any for forever.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[dinivin]

It's a freakin' TV show. A good TV show, but just a TV show. It is not reality, and should not be the basis for any real legal opinion.

Dinivin

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Homology]

They have already proved in court, many many times, that you have no expectation of privacy in such things as email and instant messaging. I'm not sure why were even discussing this.

"Law and Order"? If I thought you where an US citizen (sorry, but there are many more Americans than US citizens) I would have to believe that you are serious. But since you clearly are European (you know, from the "old Europe" where governments actually listen to the population), I'll have to mod you as +1 Funny.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[stevejsmith]

The American vs. US citizen crusade is tired and old. Plenty of languages have anachronisms, especially for nationalities. Most Slavic languages' word for "German" is directly related to the word "mute," the English name "Holland," in Dutch, actually refers to a place in the Netherlands, the adjective "Dutch" is a misinterpretation... Languages evolve sometimes to mean things other than their literal and obvious meanings. In this case, the term "American" has been adopted to mean "one of the United States of America." And honestly, with good reason! The USA was the first country in America, therefore if anyone can claim that title, it should be them. Your argument is affected and arbitrary. Go fight for a real cause.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a freakin' TV show. A good TV show, but just a TV show. It is not reality, and should not be the basis for any real legal opinion.

It was a joke that 5 moderators did not get (it is +5 informative as I post this.) I would have posted logged in if I knew it would get modded that way.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Homology]

In this case, the term "American" has been adopted to mean "one of the United States of America." And honestly, with good reason! The USA was the first country in America, therefore if anyone can claim that title, it should be them. Your argument is affected and arbitrary. Go fight for a real cause.

A childhood friend of mine studied at an US (Texas) university in the late eigthies. He summarized it like this "The US has some very great universities, but their high school system is awful." You're an example that some things has not improved for nearly two decades.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[ratnerstar]

Wow, a childhood friend of yours spent a few years in Texas? And he made a trite remark? You must certainly be the most qualified person here to talk about US society.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have already proved in court, many many times, that you have no expectation of privacy in such things as email and instant messaging. I'm not sure why were even discussing this.

That's why we are not discussing the law. We are discussing the AIM terms of service.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[geminidomino]

You know, you'd look like less (but not MUCH less) of a pretentious jerk if you didn't have basic grammar errors when you're insulting someone else's education.

You're an example that some things has not improved for nearly two decades.

Since "things" is plural, that should be have.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[stinky wizzleteats]

sorry, but there are many more Americans than US citizens

An interesting semantic point. Reality, however, is that everyone understands that people from the US are Americans. If you tell some German you meet in a bar in Hamburg that you are a USian, he will think you are an idiot. Until I meet a Brazilian who introduces themselves as an American, or until someone from Italy asks me what country I am from after I introduce myself as such, I will consider this to be a stupid, meaningless semantic peice of white guilt that I, and certainly none of the actual people I meet overseas, have time for.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[stevejsmith]

True, I did spend most of my school-age life in the US. However, I attended an amazing public school - one of the best in Pennsylvania - and graduated with an IB diploma, accredited by the International Baccalaureate Organization in Geneva. I also spent a significant amount of high school in Romania (and, when I got there, let me just say that I was miles ahead of native Romanians in many subjects).

But uh, you had a friend who lived in Texas for a few years twenty years ago. So I guess you win regarding the whole knowledge-of-American-education-systems. Oh wait no, sorry -knowledge-of-United-States-of-American-education- systems.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Minna Kirai]

The USA was the first country in America,

Wrong. I can name 6 countries in America before the USA was there, and could probably find 10 more in the library without trouble. In 1730, prior to the USA Constitution or even Declaration of Independence, the word "American" was quite well known and universally comprehended.

The USA was the first country in America, therefore if anyone can claim that title, it should be them.

If anyone can claim that title, it should be someone who lives in America. Every other continent has a word which can be used to refer the people residing there. But the real meaning of American and America is eternally misunderstood, because many people wrongly use them as abbreviations for "United States of America", when the correct abbreviation is (obviously) "USA".

This is equivalent to how Microsoft embraces and extends a product category... they didn't invent the "*.DOC" file extension, but they act like they did.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[stevejsmith]

Hm, really? Because I've been looking around online for a while now and I can't find one. I found a line in the History of the Americas Wikipedia article that suggested that the US was the first ("Europe sovereignty began to unravel on July 4, 1776..."), but that's about it. So perhaps you could enlighten me as to what these countries were.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Minna Kirai]

So perhaps you could enlighten me as to what these countries were.

Do you seriously have to ask? I could easily spend hours listing them, but instead I'll see what I can do in 15 seconds:

Navajo, Cherokee, Pawnee, Algonquin, Tenochitlan, Olmec, Aztec, Inca, Adobe, Portugal, France, Spain, Netherlands, England.

There, 14 nations in 15 seconds. Some of those were located wholely inside America, others were multi-continent empires, but all of them included Americans as residents.

Re:Don't you people watch Law and Order?

[Minna Kirai]

I found a line in the History of the Americas Wikipedia article that suggested that the US was the first

Why don't you check out the first line of that page, which demonstrates that the US was (at best) the NINETH:

1. The history of the Americas begins with their colonization by peoples from Asia, the ancestors of today's Native Americans. They established numerous civilizations such as the Moche, Cahokia, Maya, Toltecs, Olmec, Aztecs, Inca, and the Iroquois.

So does AOL listen?

[jcm]

Hopefully folks will appreciate the amount of sway that a good argument does have at AOL. If it wasn't for public discussion the TOS probably would not have been changed. But the public discussion happened and there will now be a more specific TOS statements. I wish folks would always give AOL a chance instead of immediately bashing. Was this enough to buy some good will from folks for the future?

Re:So does AOL listen?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word, no.

Another way to view this is AOL tried to pull a stinky and got called on it. I may be cynical, but I'm not certain that should engender any goodwill beyond viewing ALL of AOL's actions with suspscion.

Re:So does AOL listen?

[Anonymous Coward]

A company does not deserve good will for "fixing" major screw ups like this. There should not have been a screw up in the first place. If Google said "we're selling your gmail address to the spammers!" and then retracted it a day later after a huge public outcry, they wouldn't deserve good will--we would be horrified that they would even suggest such a thing.

The "slip it by us" nature of the change to the TOS makes this even worse. AOL wasn't expecting anyone to notice this. Someone did, and they made a huge fuss about it. You talk as if responding to a horrified public is a shakey business move; AOL has to keep users happy, just like anyone else.

Regardless, a company does not get in my good graces by threatening to invade my privacy and then going back on it. If it did, every company would use it. I don't think AOL is going to adopt the slogan "At least we're not reading your Instant Messages!" anytime soon, because it simply does not work.

Blah

[suparjerk]

time to recruit the rest of my friends to my WASTE network...

And directly from...

[daveschroeder]

...Juberti's blog (the chief architect for the AIM service):

AIM Privacy and Slashdot

OK, I am getting tired of hearing about how "The new AIM TOS allows AOL to have all rights to anything you say on IM, AOL reads/stores all your IMs, etc."

I take this kind of personally, because that is not something I would want to be associated with.

First off, that blurb in the TOS only refers to AIM forum posts, not IMs. I agree that it is vague and should be reworded to be clear.

Second, the amount of IM traffic is on the order of hundreds of gigabytes a day. It would be very costly, and we have no desire to record all IM traffic. We don't do it.

Thirdly, if you still don't trust us, we have Direct IM (aka Send IM Image) and Secure IM in all recent versions of the AIM software. In other words, you can send your IMs in such a way that they never go through our servers, and/or are encrypted with industry-standard SSL and S/MIME technology. I know this since I designed these features. There are no backdoors; I would not have permitted any.

I am saying this as a concerned invidual, and not as a corporate mouthpiece.

Re:And directly from...

[drinkypoo]

That's all very nice, but we have only his word - yet another reason why OSS is superior when you are concerned about privacy. I don't particularly trust anyone who works for AOL, not because I think they are automatically bad people, but because AOL has done enough bad things that the odds that any individual employee of AOL is "bad" are too high to carry on in any other fashion. Paranoid? Maybe, but paranoia is often a useful policy.

Re:And directly from...

[airConditionedGypsy]

Agreed.

The encryption is actually end-to-end, so AOL doesn't have a prayer of intercepting and decoding your conversation, especially if you don't use their client and instead use GAIM and its crypto plugin.

Re:And directly from...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up please!
"Gaim-Encryption uses NSS to provide transparent RSA encryption as a Gaim plugin."

Re:And directly from...

[prizog]

AOL could easily afford to store hundreds of gigs per day. If they're sticking it on SATA HDs, they can store 200 GB/day for about $40k/year. Call it twice that for redundancy. That's nothing in AOL terms.

Re:And directly from...

[daveschroeder]

AOL could easily afford to store hundreds of gigs per day. If they're sticking it on SATA HDs, they can store 200 GB/day for about $40k/year.

And because they can do it, they of course are doing it?

...

Re:And directly from...

[HiThere]

It's my understanding that GAIM has it's weaknesses, and that you should use something else instead. Unfortunately, I wasn't interested enough to remember either what the crypto weakness of GAIM was, or what the alternate client was that was recommended.

I was, however, mentioned during the prior /. discussion, if you're interested enough to ferret through that.

Re:And directly from...

[Samari711]

that's just the cost of storage, there are also issues of actually implementing a system to do the logging on all the servers in such a way that doesn't degrade performance and logging in such a way that is actually usefull. I highly doubt that they'd be able to search through thousands of flat text files on hundreds of servers very quickly or efficiently.

Re:And directly from...

[Peter La Casse]

AOL could easily afford to store hundreds of gigs per day. If they're sticking it on SATA HDs, they can store 200 GB/day for about $40k/year.

And because they can do it, they of course are doing it?

Don't be silly. The previous poster's point was that they can do it, so protestations that they can't do it are mistaken at best. Whether or not they do do it is not a matter of technical capability. They can if they decide to.

Re:And directly from...

[m50d]

Or use kopete and its gpg integration plugin. That way you can interoperate, if clunkily, with users of other clients too.

Re:And directly from...

[prizog]

Ok, so you have to index it. The point is that 50TB/year just isn't that much data anymore. Sure, you can't really do it for 80k/year, but it won't be much more than 300k, with admininstration costs.

Re:And directly from...

[Tim C]

And what does that estimated 300k buy them exactly? Bragging rights about having the largest data warehouse of utter crap?

Just because a thing is feasible doesn't make it likely :-)

Re:And directly from...

[prizog]

I dunno. It can't be that hard to find the AIM addresses of famous people. You must be able to get some pretty good blackmail material out of it. OK, so maybe not. But appraisal of competitor's plans is probably worth something. I'm sure some Sony execs (or whatever) use AIM. Just a week's extra notice about a lawsuit could let AOL fire first, getting a better venue and better PR. What about selling access to foreign governments to spy on dissidents in their countries?

Re:And directly from...

[Samari711]

I have a funny feeling that even if they wanted to, it's dangerously close to running afoul of federal wiretap law. I'm not sure whether changing the TOS without notice can constitute the permission of a party to record the transmission. IANAL

Re:And directly from...

[prizog]

Maybe. I'm not an expert in wiretap law, so I try to avoid making comments about it. Still, a quick flip through ECPA shows section 2511(2)(d), which seems to say that so long as at least one of the parties gives permission, it's OK. I don't know how that (and 2511(3)) have been interpreted in cases.

what they forgot to mention

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

and will explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL

Was that, 75% of their chat sessions are user--to--server--to--user, which since they did not specifically specify are now exempt from privacy expectations.

OMG, LOL CUL8R d00d

Re:what they forgot to mention

[Laivincolmo]

I believe they meant that in public chatrooms or in forums, content that you say or post is public.

As explained in detail in the AIM Privacy Policy, AOL does not read your private online communications when you use any of the communication tools on AIM Products. If, however, you use these tools to post Content or other information to public areas on AIM Products (for example, in chat rooms or online message boards), other online users will have access to this information and Content.

They also mention..

AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating Content posted to public areas of AIM Products.

Re:Blag

[tomhudson]

whoever still uses instant pestering doesn't deserve any rights.

No, it's "whoever uses AO-Hell doesn't deserve any rights".

This keeps on, everyone's going to start running their own private chat servers instead of using the "big boys". Fuck 'em.

[tt].

because

[vena]

common courtesy isn't always defined by law.

Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

focussing on the customer and treating them with respect will get your buisness much further along than the current trend of corporate "slash and burn" policies

because things get ugly when you treat people with distain (see (MP|RI)AA) and dont give customers what they want, adapt and survive or carry on and get mugged/beaten and spat out by n billion internauts

You waive any right to privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, Weinstein said a blunt and inelegant line that reads "You waive any right to privacy" will be deleted altogether.

for last 6 years I had no privacy on AIM?

The Department of Homeland Security

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another sign on that the DHS is putting out its tentacles to build a file of what you're up to nowadays. In the future there's no need to write your biography... you just order your issue from the DHS.

How it's being spun ...

[jc42]

I'd already read a number of the stories about this at news.google.com, and very few of them mention any change to the TOS. Rather, they spin it as a customer "misunderstanding" of AOL's privacy rules. They've said that AOL is merely "clarifying" the rules, with no mention of any changes.

OTOH, there is now one story listed, from p2pnet.net, that uses the word "modify". So maybe the real story will be reported by a few tech news sources, while the general media will report it as a misunderstanding that is being clarified.

Re:How it's being spun ...

[SlayerofGods]

It was a misunderstanding. AIM never wanted to spy on you. They just wanted legal protection for other aim products like (as the new TOS points out) rate a buddy.
Basically what they always ment to say is that if you put your picture on rate a buddy then we have the right to use that picture how ever we want.
The problem was that it wasn't clearly worded that only public postings could be used in this way by AOL.
So they aren't trying to spin this, what they're saying is the truth.

Re:How it's being spun ...

[jc42]

But the AOL TOS actually states that by "posting Content on an AIM Product", you "grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium".

In other words, AOL claims the copyright to anything you send using "an AIM Product". You have no right to use even your own words, and AOL can do with your words as they like. You can't save or send a friend a copy of an IM discussion that you were a part of, because this violates AOL's rights as stated above. But AOL can take your words, extract as they like, and do as they wish with your words, including using them for commercial purposes.

This doesn't sound at all like they're after legal protection for AIM products. It sounds like they are claiming that they own anything that anyone sends using an AIM product.

If this isn't the meaning of the above text, what does it mean?

Re:How it's being spun ...

[m50d]

That's not how it's being spun, that's how it is. It was always the case that these were only the rules for forum posts, or at least it looked like that.

Re:How it's being spun ...

[SlayerofGods]

First off you don't lose the rights to what ever you post you only give AOL the rights to use it as well.
But anyway. What they originally ment by 'posting Content on an AIM Product' was public content.
Think about it. If you post a message on a message board and don't give the company the rights to display your message.... how are they suppose to legally show it?
The misunderstand was that the original TOS didn't specifically say that only public postings would be used, but that is what they ment. So there fore it was a misunderstanding.

At least one thing your parents told you was true

[clickster]

See Timmy, if they work really really hard, a few hundred thousand people really can make a difference.

Nice to see

[SteelV]

It's really nice to see this happening. I wouldn't expect a big company to fold under public pressure over something like this. This is what the internet is meant for. Good job, Slashdot!

Re:Nice to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Gmail is indexing private email conversation. And no
amount of public pressure has caused them to change.

Big bad boy AOL changes. but "do-no-evil" Google
is allowed to get away with it.

Re:Nice to see

[SteelV]

Google indexes to serve ads. AIM tried to lay claim on our IP.

Re:Nice to see

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Google indexes to serve ads. AIM tried to lay claim on our IP.
You've got to be kidding. Your entire argument is based on spin, conjecture and bias.

Seems about par for the course 'round these parts.

It is my sincere hope...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

That the corporate attorney that wrote the first 'draft' is on the street looking for another job right now.

Re:It is my sincere hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

on the street looking for another job right now.

He might be better off checking inside buildings, as there are quite a few lawyers in those. ;)

Re:It is my sincere hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some tramp with a sign reading 'Will write EULA's for food' along the road from me... could be our man...

Re:It is my sincere hope...

[quelrods]

Heh I doubt it but we can hope. The lawyer that drafted my previous employers NDA cost $150/hr and man they couldn't even get basic english correct. There were so many holes and absurdities in it that it would have probably been laughed out of court. When presented with it I started looking for a new job. (The previous job was soul-sucking for many other reasons but the lawyer/NDA part was the final straw.)

Slashdot Union

[technomancer68]

The slashdot effect is showing actual results muhahaha.. we should form a union and make our demands! :-)

Re:Blag

[blackmonday]

"He who uses AOL for security deserves neither AOL nor security." - Benjamin Franklin

Why don't they do something about the botnets...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is nice that they are wasting their time on stupid shit like this, instead of bothering to do something about all the botnets that use links in away messages and profiles to spread.

Ditch them anyway - untrustworthy

[northwind]

I am canceling my use of AIM (through GAIM of course) anyway. It is almost certain that when this storm is over they make gradual changes to cancel user rights again.
Once on the slippery slope - always......

Re:Ditch them anyway - untrustworthy

[k3v0]

you can always use the handy Gaim Encryption plugin

Re:Blag

[Anonymous Coward]

True,
also if gmail keep indexing private email conversation,
then everyone's going to start running their own private email servers instead of using the "big boys".

because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[xxavierg]

"AOL has responded to the recent slashdot attention."

where in the article did it say that slashdot was the motivating force? i read that it was just received a "firestorm of privacy-related criticism". please, this might be a popular site, but don't take credit where none is deserved. especially when the article never mentioned any group in particular. i am sure slashdot was one of MANY groups, organization, sites, etc. that complained. but in no did it change it's policy just because of slashdot...

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone already pointed out that the Chief Developer for AIM said it was from slashdot.

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[TorrentNinja]

Yeah, I totally agree. AOL would only change its stance if they thought they might have some customers leave or prevent some customers from joining their service. AOL must know that no Slashdot reader is an AOL customer, eh, well I hope not :) That's why I doubt /. was the motivating factor. Maybe in the event CNet, CNN, Etc or something linking to a slashdot story where we get wider coverage to AOL customers.

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[Vann_v2]

Slashdot is the one who first published this, wasn't it? If that's the case then it's not unreasonable to take at least some credit for AOL's response.

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[LakeSolon]

Actually, 'acaben' of MacSlash fame was apparently the first one to mention it in this post on his blog.

~Lake

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[acaben]

Hey, thanks! It's nice that people acknowledge what started this all. I appreciate the recognition. Ben

Re:because of SLASHDOT?!?!?

[Apotsy]

I saw it on three different sites before I saw it here.

Slashdot isn't even one of the top 25 message boards on the net anymore. It's small time.

Thank you...but...

[SamMichaels]

AOL, thanks for hearing us out. We appreciate it.

Now what about Google Desktop, Deadaim, et al that record your conversation? People saying that they're home-free from being haunted by their words later on are sadly mistaken. Just because AOL isn't listening doesn't mean someone else isn't.

The power of /.

[PhatboySlim]

Now we just need to get the RIAA to read a few articles.

Re:The power of /.

[halltk1983]

Then we could sue THEM for downloading OUR content!!!

very costly

[trb]

Uberti explained on his Weblog that the amount of IM traffic on the AIM network "is on the order of hundreds of gigabytes a day."

"It would be very costly, and we have no desire to record all IM traffic. We don't do it," Uberti wrote.

Ooh, hundreds of gigabytes a day, it would be very costly to record all that traffic. Gee, Dr. Evil, what does a 100 Gigabyte storage device cost? One Million Dollars?

Re:very costly

[TorrentNinja]

Not even 1 million. Think about all that text. I'm sure you could compress the hell out of all that data and you would be able to store it. Why would they store raw data when they could compress it down? I bet they are able to Tap connections and peer into what people are talking about if they have the capability to monitor the raw traffic being sent. If it's an option they have then I'm sure some sysadmin or tech guys is going to be using it.

Re:very costly

[trb]

The biz about Dr. Evil and the "one million dollars" was a sarcastic reference to Austin Powers, who was similarly confused about both modern technology and how much things cost. (Sigh.)

Re:very costly

[rbochan]

Maybe THAT'S what's on all those damn aol cds...

Re:very costly

[TomorrowPlusX]

Well sure, if all you're talking about is *storage*. But employing people to read all that for incriminating discussion would be prohibitive.

Sure, a computer could pattern match to find potentially incriminating discussion, but frankly, AI ain't there. You'll need humans, and humans require pay.

Not to mention the fact that anybody forced/paid to read even a tenth of a percent of that crap would go apeshit in just one day of reading all that inanity.

Now, back to reading slashdot...

Re:very costly

[Anonymous Coward]

oh? only 1 million dollars a day? $365+ million a year, even AOL wont scoff at that.

Re:very costly

[goid]

Storage systems capable of storing that much data for a usable span of time definitely do cost a million dollars, if not more.

Beyond that, there is the cost in R&D, manpower, and CPU resources to create and run software to analyze that data.

Doing any useful data mining of AOL's message traffic would be a very large project.

Realistically, what is far more likely is they would scan the incoming data and throw the majority away, storing only a few bits.

Otherwise there just isn't enough signal in the noise to even pay for such a huge project.

Pretty cool

[acaben]

I'm feeling pretty pleased with the effects I've seen from a post on my previously barely-read blog.

My latest post on the AIM matter celebrates another important victory by the blogosphere. In just two days, I helped to direct enough attention to the bad sections of AIM's privacy policy that they're now changing it. While I started the fracas, it wasn't me, but the cacophony of voices that picked up on the story and helped to get the attention of AOL.

I'll continue to try to be vigilant of what I'm agreeing to online, and hope others will, too. Privacy and ownership are important concepts, and this proves we can make sure that corporations respect us.

Lets say it was 500 gigs per day just to meet in

[Polarism]

the middle.

That's ~183 Terabytes per year.

Do the math.

Nice start, but could have been done better

[tji]

> explicitly exclude user-to-user chat sessions from the privacy rights an AIM user gives up to AOL.

That's an improvement. But, wouldn't it be better (from a user rights and privacy perspective) to explicitly state the areas they DO take ownership of your data in, rather than only excluding this one area? The default case should be that they don't own your data. With excluding only AIM, they still leave the default case for all other services to be that AOL owns your data.

It's sort of like opt-in vs. opt-out. I prefer that anyone using my personal information or data be required to get my explicit permission to use it, rather than requiring me to contact each and ask them to not use it.

Bad TOS bad for business

[hca]

Last summer we reviewed using Yahoo's small business product to host our site, and handle our email, but their TOS had the same boilerplate in it. It required that anything we had on their system -- files, website, emails was available for them to resell or republish as their own content. Obvious non-starter, and our complaint about the issue was ignored so we didn't use the service.

Re:Lets say it was 500 gigs per day just to meet i

[trb]

OK, a gig of disk costs a dollar, retail, more or less. 500 gigs, let's see. $500. $183k per year. You think that's a lot of money for AOL? That's like the loaded price of one senior engineer. (And that's before buying the disks in bulk or compressing the data.)

Your math is fuzzy and wrong

[Polarism]

Try again, factor in the costs of running the storage farm, maintainence, keeping the data safe, actually setting up the system to even do the archiving, factor in bandwidth costs that this facility would suck down, not to mention the costs of even having the facility.

You just didn't even begin to factor in anything but the pure cost of 1 gigabyte in some situations, a 500 gig drive is not $500.

Re:Your math is fuzzy and wrong

[trb]

Yes, my math was fuzzy, I was offering an estimate. My math was not wrong. (The "one million" was a silly Austin Powers joke, as I mentioned above.) The actual cost of a raw gig is way less than a dollar (and always falling), and I allowed for the fact that I wasn't even talking about compressed data. I am aware that storing large amounts of data is more than just the cost of the media, but still, the AOL guy implied that it wasn't financially feasible for AOL to store the data, and I'm claiming that for folks who want to snoop on all that data, the costs are definitely not prohibitive.

Re:Your math is fuzzy and wrong

[Cid Highwind]

AIM conversations are mostly english text with a small vocabulary. They should compress amazingly well, a gigabyte of AIM conversations will probably compress to well under 100MB. Besides, there's no reason to keep the whole archive online. Just index the data as it comes in, keep that live index in a 10TB storage farm, and dump the actual conversations to tape. If you just want aggregate data about what people are talking about to sell to market research groups you're set, and if you really need a full conversation you can have some $7/hour intern go root through the tape cabinets.

It would be expensive, but not out of reach for an organization as big as AOL. Given how desperate marketers are to latch on to whatever the 14 to 20-year-old demographic thinks is cool this week, the project could even pay for itself...

pr0n

[Flamesplash]

"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography.

man, I wonder who they needed the second part of that for.

'oh good, it's just porn, little jimmy isn't getting into anything wrong. Let me check the Microsoft dictionary just in case... Pornography!!!'

Have fun patting yourself on the back

[EvilStein]

But the change was made in 2004. A year ago. The whole "just because they SAY they won't doesn't mean that they won't ever do it!" line is kind of old as well.

Welcome to the Internet. Slashdot can change its privacy policy at anytime. There are dozens of other companies out there that have almost identical AUP texts in place. Yahoo's AUP comes to mind. Nothing is stopping any internet company from doing whatever they want with the data.
Fact is, AOL has no business need to monitor AIM conversations. Why would they? There's no profit to be made, so why would they implement infrastructure to read chat conversations? AOL keeps a "hands off" approach to chat rooms and chat conversations because if they DID monitor them, it'd be a huge liability for them. HUGE legal issues.

This didn't prove squat about corporations respecting us. Hate to tell you, but it was a tiny pebble in a huge pond.

(disclaimer: Back in 2000, I used to work for Netscape/AOL in AOL Network Services. This issue has been around for a LONG time.. way before the Blogosphere. It was stated way back then that chat conversations weren't going to be monitored then, and there were no plans to. 5 years later, AOL is still saying the same thing.)

Hate to tell you, but this really was a non-issue. Want to get bent out of shape by an AUP? Look at the crap Gratis shoves on people with these "freeipod.com" scams. Check out *that* AUP/TOS of you want something to fear.

Non-story, /. takes credit (again)

[Anonymous Coward]

This really is a non-story, but that doesn't prevent /. from taking credit for effecting change and thus supporting many in the false belief that making some dumbass comment(s) on this forum will create a difference.

Despite bloggers taking (false) credit for "making" AOL change their TOS, the real credit goes to those few AOL/IM subscribers who took the time to read the new TOS and complain.

"Trust me"

Re:Non-story, /. takes credit (again)

[bestadvocate]

"the real credit goes to those few AOL/IM subscribers who took the time to read the new TOS and complain."

who oddly enough were the bloggers who submited the story to /. :p

Great .... armchair lawyers.....

[Anonymous Coward]

In them we trvst.

Well

[pHatidic]

Except for the fact that they are changing their TOS and you are bound to these changes without your consent. Next time they could just as easily add in an evil clause, and if you complain then they can cite your complicity this time around.

Even though they are on the surface doing something good, it is still setting a bad and dangerous precedent.

Re:Well

[SilicaiMan]

Even though they are on the surface doing something good, it is still setting a bad and dangerous precedent.

So what do you suggest they do? It seems to me that no matter what their response is, someone will complain that it is not enough.

Re:Well

[geminidomino]

Why do you think there will be less backlash against the evil clause than there was this time?

The whole reason this is being changed is BECAUSE of the outrage over the last one. Why do you think the same people who complained, stopped using AIM, etc... that caused them to backpedal on this one will quietly sit back and accept another ass-reaming later?

Funny moderators

[Pac]

Not getting the joke is "Insightful"?

Re:Funny moderators

[halltk1983]

it is when the joke is "informative"

Re:Funny moderators

[Short Circuit]

When the Joke was modded "+5 Informative", a modded-up counterpoint might be necessary.

No changes, just re-formatting.

[Transcendent]

America Online Inc. plans to make three small but significant modifications to the terms of service for its AIM instant messaging product to head off a firestorm of privacy-related criticisms.

In an earlier slashdot article (too lazy to get the link), it was mentioned that the terms of service was misinterpreted by someone, and that it was *never implied* that private IM conversations were to be snooped upon, saved, or so forth.

We never lost out privacy, some idiot just misread it and this most recent change is in an attempt to make it "idiot-proof" for the future.

Re:No changes, just re-formatting.

[acaben]

I believe you're suggesting that I'm that "idiot," since I'm the guy who read the Terms of Service on Friday and posted the blog entry that set off this brouhaha.

While your propensity for name-calling is no doubt unequaled, your ability to state the facts in this case is not so good.

Every legal analysis I've seen so far from real lawyers (here's one, and here's another.) says that my interpretation of the Terms of Service was correct, and the AOL spokesperson was misleading. So, sorry to inform you that there was, in fact, no misreading. However, I may still be an idiot. The jury's still out. :)

Re:No changes, just re-formatting.

[Max Nugget]

We never lost out privacy, some idiot just misread it and this most recent change is in an attempt to make it "idiot-proof" for the future.

Wrong. The language of the original legal disclaimer effectively gives AOL access and ownership of all IM communications. Your comment seems to suggest that only an "idiot" would believe that AOL logs, or would one day log, IM communications, which is a naiive point of view. Or to put that another way, you are suggesting that "only an idiot would believe that Company X would actually do what Company X's contract says it's allowed to do."

If you want to trust the ethical integrity of a giant corporation, go for it. For the rest of us, we find it more assuring to know that said giant corporation is legally disallowed from doing something completely unethical, rather than leaving it at "we'll give you the rights to do something completely unethical, but we know you'd never actually do it." Why should we be sympathetic of their legal department's desire to keep their options open?

Also -- and I'm not really sure how this works from a legality standpoint -- if AOL's contract allows them to access and take ownersihp of IM communications, that might make it more likely that law enforcement or courts could require AOL to monitor specific IM communications. And if AOL logs or ever starts logging all IM communcations (which, as another poster pointed out, would not be an especially costly endeavor), courts and law enforcement might be able to request chat logs from AOL at some time in the future. Whether or not AOL's privacy policies affect the feasibility of such activities, though, I'm not sure about.

Re:No changes, just re-formatting.

[Transcendent]

No name calling intentional, I just wanted to throw in the "idiot-proof" line. A misinterpretation does not imply retardation to the point of a 3 year old. :)

But, I interpreted the TOS differently, which I think is how AOL intends.

From the monday article:

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.

When they said "post", that's exactly how I read it... posting to message boards and such. Every time you send an IM communication, I never consider it a "post" of any sort. So, the lighter way of saying what I originally "posted", is that AOL modified their TOS to clarify the definition of "post" and the like, and to exclude IM communications from this so there will be no more... misinterpretation.

The FBI made them fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

The FBI has a umbilical line between Quantico and Vienna, Virginia. The daily flow of subpeonas is absolutely staggering. The last thing the FBI wants is for the average convictable Joe to get away from using AOL.

Yes, AOL does keep chat conversations. I've seen them entered into evidence in court. Yes, the FBI really does use AOL as a wholesale incarceration portal. It's a fucking machine. I've seen it with my own eyes.

So please, citizens, as you were. We must keep conviction rates on the rise in order to justify the next "anti-terrorism" law.

Funny USians

[Pac]

the term "American" has been adopted to mean "one of the United States of America."

You can adopt whatever you want. It does not automatically follow that people from other countries in the (North/Central/South) American continent have to follow, agree or refrain from finding you ridiculous...

Re:Funny USians

[PitaBred]

The difference is that our country name has the word "America" in it, hence, the American nomination. People from South America call themselves Brazilians or Columbians, not South Americans. Oh, wait... I forgot. Anything that is against the USA is insightful. Get a life, get a clue.

Re:Funny USians

[BorgHunter]

I find it ridiculous that people from, say, Brazil, try to call themselves Americans. American = person from the United States of America; Brazilian = person from the Federative Republic of Brazil. That makes absolute sense. I'm not a United States of American, and a Chinese guy is not a People's Republic of Chinese. If a person in Central or South America wants a designation that fits, then Latin American works very well, or [country of origin]ian, such as "Colombian," and is entirely clear. Muddling up language with unclear designations isn't a very good idea...

Re:Funny USians

[jc42]

Correct. And the explanation goes even deeper than that.

Thus, to the south of the USA is a country that officially calls itself "Estados Unidos Mexicanos", or the United Mexican States. But everyone calls it "Mexico".

Similarly, the largest country in South America is officially called "Republica Federativa do Brasil", but we usually just say "Brasil" (or "Brazil").

In Europe, there's a big country whose official name is "Bundesrepublik Deutschland", usually translated as "Federal Republic of Germany"; it is almost always called "Deutschland" or "Germany".

Shortening "United States of America" to just "America" fits exactly the pattern used with other countries. As with Deutschland/Germany, Brasil and Mexico, "America" is unambiguous, because there's no other country with that word in its name. Everyone understands when you drop the bureaucratic beginning of the official name and just use the unique portion.

What's bizarre is that people keep objecting to this use of "America", while not objecting to the similar shortening of other countries' names.

Re:Funny USians

[idsofmarch]

But, if you're from French Guiana, Columbia or Brazil what do you call yourself? American? No, you call yourself Guianian, Columbian or Brazillian. It's not that people from the United States are claiming the whole Western Hemisphere, it's that the name of our country ends with America, which makes us American. Just as someone from French Guiana would not be called a FGian (!?) or French, citizens of the United States of America are called American.

This is just one of those goofy things that happens in English.

Re:Funny USians

[Minna Kirai]

Correct. And the explanation goes even deeper than that

Wrong. False analogies.

What's bizarre is that people keep objecting to this use of "America", while not objecting to the similar shortening of other countries' names.

They aren't similar. If you are an MIT student, you should recognize the threat ambiguity poses to language as a tool for rational discourse.

Dropping "Republic of" or "United States of" from Germany, Mexico, or Taiwan doesn't remove any informational content, because in each case, the nation in question totally (or at least approximately) covers the geographical region for which it was named.

That isn't the case with the United States of America, which encompasses hardly 10% of the land mass known as America.

Language both reflects and directs though. When citizens of the USA call themselves Americans, they are reinforcing the opinion that only one country in that pair of continents has any value or rights.

So.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why's GWB still in office?

Re:So.....

[clickster]

Because, while people care when there's voting fraud, most people are too damned lazy to actually do anything about it.

Your math was :)

[Polarism]

I do realize it was a joke, my reply wasn't directly at you but more exploratory to begin with, you responded with what seemed like real analysis so I responded in kind.

No need to whip out the six shooters here. :)

Re:Your math was :)

[trb]

No need to whip out the six shooters here. :)

Maybe not six-shooters. How about sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads? :)

shut up already

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So many people are going "YAY THE LITTLE GUY WON!", well no the little guy didn't do ANYTHING! AOL was never going to read how little janey is sleeping with Jamie today but Dave tomorrow. They couldn't careless what crap you put in an IM as long as you click an ad once in a while.

Changing a couple of words (AKA addding "oh the forums") doesn't mean "the little guy won". It means AOL spend a tiny amount of money to correct an error they made everyone made a song and dance about.

Well done little guy you cost AOL about 0.00001% of their money on a lawyer! Time to take down Microsoft now!

Re:shut up already

[KD5YPT]

Um... I just thought its interesting that AOL cares what we're thinking.

For us, it's a good thing.

As for the fact we didn't do anything... so?

Posting on Slashdot does not equals to doing something, its just to put stuff out so people know about them. And in this case, we cause enough attention to the company that they clarified things for us, which I thought is good.

Who cares..

[duncangough]

so long as they continue to randomly suspend my accounts and not reply to any of my emails asking for help?

SEA BASS

[Polarism]

lol ;)

Re:At least one thing your parents told you was tr

[billbaggins]

That's odd.... seeing as they talk about the pressure from /., the line that *I* thought of was "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"...

Re:At least one thing your parents told you was tr

[clickster]

That one works too. The stupidity factor weighed in heavily, but could have been offset to an extent if the laziness factor hadn't set in. In combination, they are the most unstoppable force in the universe (or is it unmoveable - I can never remember)

Kudos

[MHobbit]

Kudos to AOL for doing the right thing.

Angry USians?

[Pac]

Oh, come on - you shouldn't call yourselves "North Americans" either - there are the Canadians and the Mexicans sharing the northern subcontinent with you. And, obviously, the people who live in South America does not call themselves by the continent name - it would be unpolite and unseemly. But then again, being "American" means you don't have to care about what other people think, right?

Power to the slashdotters!

[alexandreracine]

Yeah, you heard me!

Power to the slashdotters! :)

Europeans, Asians...

[Pac]

The continent is called "America" - those who live in it, all of it, are then "Americans". Simple. People born in Germany are both Germans and Europeans, as the Chinese are also Asians. This way, Brazilians and Colombians are as Americans as any former Texan Governor...

Re:Europeans, Asians...

[geminidomino]

Actually, the continent in question is called "NORTH America." So your statement is more accurate as such:

The continent is called "North America" - those who live in it, all of it, are then "North Americans".

Re:Europeans, Asians...

[idsofmarch]

First, there are two American continents, but I think that was just sloppy language on your part, which is of course the inherent problem. Language can be imprecise and yes this is caused by the creation of a country that uses the name of its continent in its title, but English doesn't have any good solutions for this. I have personally never heard Canadians, Mexicans, Columbians, Brazillians, Argentinians, call themselves American, and I don't think that the label American would work in the sense that Germans call themselves Europeans.

I think the fact that Germans, etc. call themselves European is unique: Japanese typically don't call themselves Asians and neither do Pakistanis because Asian typifies a particular group to an East Oriental identity. European is the most specific of continental indentifiers and even that distinction divides Kurds into European Kurds (in Turkey) from Asian Kurds (Iraq). African works until you go to Egypt, where suddenly the continent is Africa, but the people indentify themselves as either Egyptians, Arabs, Muslims, etc.

So, my point is still the name is just a name, so USians (how do you even use that in conversation) are Americans. Even Spanish translates the United States of America into los Estados Unidos de América, which is the primary language of Latin America, and French translates it into Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique. So between the three major languages of the Americas, all would use 'American' as shorthand for people from the United States.

Re:Europeans, Asians...

[BorgHunter]

They are Latin American or South American, if you wish. Not plain American. That word is usually used, as I said, for the United States of America. American adj. 1. Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture. 2. Of or relating to North or South America, the West Indies, or the Western Hemisphere. 3. Of or relating to any of the Native American peoples. 4. Indigenous to North or South America. Used of plants and animals. Incidentally, why did you mention Bush?

Re:Europeans, Asians...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid me, forgetting my
s...grrr. I hang my head in shame.

*giggle*

[Schwartzboy]

Not to mention the fact that anybody forced/paid to read even a tenth of a percent of that crap would go apeshit in just one day of reading all that inanity.

Now, back to reading slashdot...

Please tell me that I'm not the only person who did a double-take reading that, and that the effect was intentional? On a completely unrelated topic, what's the best way to clean Mt. Dew off of a monitor?

OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of people use AIM as a tool to share incredibly personal stories and don't assume that their personal conversations will show up in AOL's marketing materials or other places, especially without their consent. AOL has created a basic expectation of privacy, while secretly sticking in their legal documents that there isn't any. That AOL even thinks it's ok for them to collect these millions of intimate personal conversations is bad enough, but that they grant themselves the right to broadly use such material is simply not acceptable. By Sport Jewelry

Re:OK

[Anonymous Coward]

THe thing is...who cares if AOL can read your ims anyway...what are they going to do with it. Are they going to care if i'm having a bad day or I hate the girl I work with or if I am meeting up with someone after work. I don't really understand the whole thing at all. The question is..how is it easy for someone to eavesdrop on my conversations and how can anyone on the network see what I'm passing back and forth? Why would they even bother?

OK

[lyasik]

I'm keenly aware that by communicating with friends and colleagues via AIM, it's easy for someone to eavesdrop on our conversation. I know that anyone on the network can see what I'm passing back and forth, and thus try to not to have too many highly sensitive conversations via AIM. Nefarious observers of packets have always concerned me, but I never thought to be concerned that the company providing the service would share that information. Millions of people use AIM as a tool to share incredibly personal stories and don't assume that their personal conversations will show up in AOL's marketing materials or other places, especially without their consent. AOL has created a basic expectation of privacy, while secretly sticking in their legal documents that there isn't any. That AOL even thinks it's ok for them to collect these millions of intimate personal conversations is bad enough, but that they grant themselves the right to broadly use such material is simply not acceptable. >>> sport jewelry

Re:At least one thing your parents told you was tr

[Trillan]

Beautiful. Both of you. :)

In Spanish ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... a US citizen is called an estadounidense. The word was created (I assume) to avoid calling US citizens Americans.

But I didn't!

[Pac]

I mentioned Ann Richards... :)

pr0n-pr0n!

[Mulletproof]

....Along with the fact that it "possibly" might indicate porn. Might have to monitor them a little longer, just to be sure.

(Black)berry interesting!?

[Anonymous Coward]

From "Wired News" yesterday:
"Black IMs: Instant messaging will become a more prominent feature on BlackBerrys under separate agreements by Research in Motion with both America Online and Yahoo.
The software for AOL Instant Messenger, AOL's ICQ service and Yahoo (YHOO) Instant Messenger will be pre-installed on new BlackBerrys in the coming months, the companies said."

Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it shoul

[Anonymous Coward]

Case in point.

With so much hubris ...

[kitzilla]

... it's no wonder AOL is #1.

Eh

[Lightning Hopkins]

I'm switching to Gaim anyway.

Yum

[kitzilla]

"We're not making any policy changes. We're making some linguistic changes to clarify certain things and explain it a little better to our users," AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein told eWEEK.com. "And YUM ... this crow is totally delicious!"

Also...

[goid]

What would have been a win for the little guy, is AOL no longer claiming ownership of your creations when the act of creation occured on their systems.

I really don't see why they want to do that anyway, since some lawyers say that claiming any kind of control or ownership over something can lead to your being responsible for it later.

When I worked for an ISP, we explicitely stated to all users that they owned their content, after lawyers warned us that if we ever claimed ownership or even if we tried to control content, we could be considered by a court to be legally responsible for it.

Aside:

I think that a legal case on the AOL TOS would be interesting, since you are also simultaneously creating each "work" on your own system, and 0-N other systems.

Of course, this is common to a lot of situations involving content creation.

Privacy? LOL.. No such thing

[anonymous30]

Anyone who seriously thinks you have any privacy online is delusional. Anything you do online can be read or deciphered at will. If you think different then your only kidding yourself. The NSA has the ability to crack any 256bit encrypted code in under 4 minutes. Believe it or not. Re-mailers, IP spoofing, etc are all a waste. If they want to know who you are or what you said, it can be done.

Fisher-Price or midgets?

[tepples]

The collective voices of thousands of "Little People"(tm) made a differance on a huge company.

What the heck do Fisher-Price toys and midgets have to do with anything?

a large company careing about their customers

In corporatese, "caring about their customers" means only "not bleeding all the goodwill out of their trademarks".