It may not be "policy" per se, but it has been part of AOL from the get-go and continues to this day. A quick google will get you some interesting results.
Whether it's a rogue manager or not, it's being done under the corporate banner and therefore the responsibility of said corporate entity.
Charging users credit cards for "free" accounts is simply an extension of previous business practices, designed to raise a revolving, interest free, source of cash and is nothing new for AOL as far as I'm concerned.
In 1997 I fell prey to using AOL. Then I found Netcom and the internet, so I cancelled my AOL account.
Imagine my surprise when the credit card statement came in and another AOL charge was on my account. I immediately called them, asked why I was being charged after cancellation. The telephone droid assured me that there must have been a mix up, that I was no longer an AOL subscriber and that I would be credited on my next statement.
Which I was, but I was also charged again. So I called again, and again the next month, and the month after that, and...
Finally I wised up and called the credit card company, stated my case and the monthly round robin ceased.
My $19.95 was nothing in the great scheme of things. However, multiplied by X number of thousands of accounts cancelled in any given month, that $19.95 could balloon into a floating, interest free chunk of capital of immense proportions, available to use for 30 days. Even if not used, the interest off of such amounts wouldn't be trivial either.
What amazes me is that it's taken as long as it has for officialdom to do anything about the pratice.
Criminal violations include theft, fraud, assault, contempt of court, etc. If a company committed one of those violations, the CEO would be held personally responsible for it.
There are those who would contend M$'s assertions that windoze is a stable, secure, operating system constitute fraud.
As for theft, how about the large amounts of lost time spent patching, blue screening, recovering from patching, blue screening...?
I think we need to try and interest Jack Thompson in a class action suit.
"The Unix subsystems on Mac OS X were originally written for machines that were typically never shut off. Mac OS X inherits this assumption in version 1.x, and has many system maintenance tasks that are scheduled to run between 3 am and 5 am. In addition, there are scripts designed to run weekly on weekends, and once a month in the middle of the night.
If these maintenance tasks are never run (such as on a laptop that is always shut off at night), many log files and system database will grow extremely large or fail to get backed up."
If you're runnning Wintel boxes, you add another layer with a rules based, software firewall that does an MD5 checksum of all applications accessing the outside.
Why don't we just ear-tag the homeless with RFID's and track their migration like an endangered species?
Too expensive, and too easily removed. I say bar code 'em! Tattoo it where it's easily seen. Wait, that'd take too long and require them to hold still long enough...
I know! Heat up those branding irons!
Works for cattle, and isn't that what politicians consider us anyway?
Had a box start going wiggy...a local "guru" told me the CPU was toasted. I took him at his word and pulled the CPU, bought a replacement, then took the bad one to the sink and proceeded to vigorously scrub the thermal grease off with hand brush and dish soap (was going to show it to some neighborhood kids).
Rejumpered and dropped my spiffy new P200 in and...you guessed it, the board had toasted. Swore, bought new board, mounted it and in a fit of perversion threw the old CPU...now dry...in it.
Fired right up. In fact it powered another box for about 3 years, before I upgraded again.
Just wondering why, when I reported this story nearly eight hours prior to pudge under the title "Macslash hijacked?", it was rejected. -- Go ahead moderate me.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether it's a rogue manager or not, it's being done under the corporate banner and therefore the responsibility of said corporate entity.
Charging users credit cards for "free" accounts is simply an extension of previous business practices, designed to raise a revolving, interest free, source of cash and is nothing new for AOL as far as I'm concerned.
In 1997 I fell prey to using AOL. Then I found Netcom and the internet, so I cancelled my AOL account.
Imagine my surprise when the credit card statement came in and another AOL charge was on my account. I immediately called them, asked why I was being charged after cancellation. The telephone droid assured me that there must have been a mix up, that I was no longer an AOL subscriber and that I would be credited on my next statement.
Which I was, but I was also charged again. So I called again, and again the next month, and the month after that, and...
Finally I wised up and called the credit card company, stated my case and the monthly round robin ceased.
My $19.95 was nothing in the great scheme of things. However, multiplied by X number of thousands of accounts cancelled in any given month, that $19.95 could balloon into a floating, interest free chunk of capital of immense proportions, available to use for 30 days. Even if not used, the interest off of such amounts wouldn't be trivial either.
What amazes me is that it's taken as long as it has for officialdom to do anything about the pratice.
Criminal violations include theft, fraud, assault, contempt of court, etc. If a company committed one of those violations, the CEO would be held personally responsible for it.
There are those who would contend M$'s assertions that windoze is a stable, secure, operating system constitute fraud.
As for theft, how about the large amounts of lost time spent patching, blue screening, recovering from patching, blue screening...?
I think we need to try and interest Jack Thompson in a class action suit.
Has MS bothered to make the WMA spec available to Apple, let alone anyone else?
I doubt it, as that would defeat their own DRM/Lock in designs.
Perhaps this will help:
"The Unix subsystems on Mac OS X were originally written for machines that were typically never shut off. Mac OS X inherits this assumption in version 1.x, and has many system maintenance tasks that are scheduled to run between 3 am and 5 am. In addition, there are scripts designed to run weekly on weekends, and once a month in the middle of the night.
If these maintenance tasks are never run (such as on a laptop that is always shut off at night), many log files and system database will grow extremely large or fail to get backed up."
Mac Janitor fight this problem. Find it here.
If you're runnning Wintel boxes, you add another layer with a rules based, software firewall that does an MD5 checksum of all applications accessing the outside.
Kerio Personal Firewall (2.0M d/l) is a great little app that does just that.
Run a service pack, then bring up a Search window to see what I mean.
Didn't Cisco buy Linksys? If so, wonder what that bodes for future support policy.
http://www.tutos.org:
"Closed because of 'Software-Patents'"
Bummer.
Why don't we just ear-tag the homeless with RFID's and track their migration like an endangered species?
Too expensive, and too easily removed. I say bar code 'em! Tattoo it where it's easily seen. Wait, that'd take too long and require them to hold still long enough...
I know! Heat up those branding irons!
Works for cattle, and isn't that what politicians consider us anyway?
- Behan
Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and
creative artists than piracy.
- O'Reilly
x-p2p-is-advertising: yes
x-riaa-mpaa-missed-the-boat: yes
Several of the links from SF d/l are 404, UNC is not.
Coincidence?
I heard they changed their #:
1.888.465.4689 (1.888.GO.LINUX)
to
1.888.545.5569 (1.888.KILL.LNX)
in an effort to stem the flood of angry calls.
Had a box start going wiggy...a local "guru" told me the CPU was toasted. I took him at his word and pulled the CPU, bought a replacement, then took the bad one to the sink and proceeded to vigorously scrub the thermal grease off with hand brush and dish soap (was going to show it to some neighborhood kids).
Rejumpered and dropped my spiffy new P200 in and...you guessed it, the board had toasted. Swore, bought new board, mounted it and in a fit of perversion threw the old CPU...now dry...in it.
Fired right up. In fact it powered another box for about 3 years, before I upgraded again.
Just wondering why, when I reported this story nearly eight hours prior to pudge under the title "Macslash hijacked?", it was rejected.
--
Go ahead moderate me.