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AOL Allegedly Censors 'Email Tax' Opponents
Mediacitizen writes "AOL was accused yesterday of censoring email to AOL customers that included a link to a site opposing AOL's proposed 'email tax.' Over 300 people reported that they had tried sending AOL subscribers messages that contained a link to www.DearAOL.com, but received a bounceback message informing them that their email 'failed permanently.' After the DearAOL.com Coalition -- 600 organizations convened by Free Press, MoveOn and EFF -- notified the press of this blocking, AOL quickly cleared the opposition URL from their filters, alleging a 'software glitch.'"
"software glitch"? Right. That's the most pathetic attempt at damage control I've seen in quite a while. I do agree that something has to be done about unwanted e-mails that keep flooding my inbox (my main e-mail address gets about 300 such e-mails a day) but AOL is driving down a road that will further alienate them from their users. By pulling stunts like this, they clearly demonstrate their motives as benefiting themselves and not the customers.
This does not bode well for the acceptance of e-mail tax. As if the general public wasn't against it in the first place.
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From the article: "Left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self interest ahead of the public interest."
Well, yeah, no kidding. Since when did the "public interest" pay AOL for anything? Unless there is a law which says AOL cannot filter its "own" servers, too bad. It is AOL's right to do anything like this it wants to.
Is this the best thing to do? Obviously not, however don't be shocked when it does happen. Unless you control your own email completely (from the ISP right down to the server) you are relying on someone else. And that someone else ultimately has their interests in mind before yours.
Now, do some companies care about your interest? Sure, but they are not going to place your interest above theirs, otherwise they will be out of business. Supressing propangda which might cost you money; I don't think any business wouldn't consider that; and most, if not all, would try it.
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If they use heuristics and other methods for spam filtering that don't always work 100% reliably (I've had legit e-mail end up in the spam bin), it legitimately could have been because their spam filter just decided it was spam, and started dumping it. I'm not defending AOL, I think they suck, but just offering an alternate line of thought. Many ISPs use a human-based filter, the company I work for runs into it all the time, people sign up for our mailing list, and rather than cancel when they're done with it, they just click the "report as spam" button, and then all of our company is on their shit-list, even to those users who want to get our e-mails. Especially if somebody was mass-mailing AOL users that e-mail, it seems likely.
-JesseNothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
"Over 300 people reported that they had tried sending AOL subscribers messages that contained a link to www.DearAOL.com"
Sounds like a good candidate for a SPAM filter if you ask me.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Say hello to civil and criminal liability.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
State and Federal laws are quite clear on the fact that telemarketers CANNOT block their caller ID from showing up on a display or they would face a severe penalty.
I've actually tried calling some of the caller ID #'s that have shown up that are a telemarketing contractor or subcontractor and wound up with either a dead-end recording or a busy signal.
So CID #'s are next to useless in the immediate time being, only worthwhile to a person putting together a lawsuit agianst the joker that stacks call upon call upon call to the poor customer.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I will probably get flamed for this.
A large section of the population are idiots. These people can't figure out how to work a thermostat let alone the internet.
My boss is amoung them. I enjoy working for her, but we have been trying to wean her off AOL ever since work got a DSL line. That's right the company has a DSL line and spends whatever a month just for her AOL. She is the only one who wants it. She get's confused whenever we try to hide it on her. Heck she gets confused whenever we make minor changes.
As I said i do enjoy working for her(the side benefits aren't bad for the job) but she can't figure out how to download a file, or where to find it once it was downloaded. Those Concepts are above her head, and will always be that way.
so for her AOL is good. It's safe, and everything is in one place for her to use.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Mail to AOL from my mail servers just started bouncing again yesterday. The time is coming closer to tell my list members that if they are using AOL for email, they need to find another way if they want to use my lists.
This is actually quite a bit of a problem for companies which have not explicitely forbidden the use of a work email account for private communication. They are not allowed to filter out spam mails without explicit permission of the user (because they are not the ones to decide which emails the user wants to receive). Court rulings usually allow blocking virus mails, though, arguing that the satety of a company's computer network is very important and it may safely be assumed that a user is fine with not receiving such an email.
Oh good god no. That is the cancellations department (or as they call it the "Saves" department). They tried to make me take saves rollover calls once, I immediately and politely cancelled every account that the customer wanted cancelled. Lowest call time and highest customer satisfaction I think that queue ever saw. They never asked me to do it again...