DISQUS

Brenda · 3 months ago

You have an abandoned account and got an e-mail notification of this? I still use my account and didn't get an e-mail about it. It's about freaking time AOL did this. As usual, they don't do anything until they get sued or scolded by regulatory agencies.

Joseph Manna · 2 months ago

Brenda,

It appears AOL has re-sent their email about this to all members. I agree, for the size of the company they are, it requires litigation to change their decisions.

~Joe

Brenda · 3 months ago

You have an abandoned account and got an e-mail notification of this? I still use my account and didn't get an e-mail about it. It's about freaking time AOL did this. As usual, they don't do anything until they get sued or scolded by regulatory agencies.

marahmarie · 3 months ago

I don't know if I got an email about it. I have an AOL account for testing purposes at itcouldntb@aol.com (spam it, please - I don't use it for real email so I don't care) but I haven't checked it for my latest load of spam in a while. I can't believe this went to class action and I really can't believe AOL chose to donate to charity to settle it - how many people has AOL put in the poor house by overcharging and not canceling accounts - considering those figures, the settlement doesn't begin to cover them. Just today I got email from another former user - they've been charging her $20-something dollars every month since she canceled last fall. We're talking over $400 worth of stolen money for an account she called up and canceled just like she was supposed to. I get fed up sometimes reading email after email just like hers year in and year out - the subject matter never changes, just the names.

Joseph Manna · 2 months ago

The best part of it, the donation to charity is a great way to reduce their tax footprint and they can deduct all of it, even if court-ordered.

With regard to people being charged $20 month after month for over a year is an issue I have. Not with the company but the people being charged. I'm not trying to defend 'the man', but there's a certain amount of personal responsibility people have in monitoring their finances ensuring they are billed correctly by their creditors.

How could she not know after at least a couple months something's wrong?

Besides, AOL executed a fairly decent "free AOL" campaign ALL users should have been notified of during August 2006. Any time someone changes billing plans, the Free AOL option is a choice that remains regardless of account balances or status. Even on Dial-up, I believe the price is $10/mo.

That said, the credit policies at AOL only afford three months cash credit back to people which is disappointing for people have held service for a year. There's an amount of personal responsibility that we all have in holding companies accountable. Not a year later unless circumstances like death or whatnot took place.

erik13 · 3 months ago

What are the benefits of opting out of this class lawsuit thing? I would love to not have my name affiliated to any lawsuit if I can choose to have or not have the advertising footers at the bottom of the emails anyway. Well I guess I should ask, would my name be associated to this claim? I have no thought of wanting to bring a claim against AOL for this advertising matter, so is it a good idea to "opt-out?" If anyone knows the law, I would appreciate to hear from you.

Joseph Manna · 2 months ago

Erik,

As far as I know, you could opt-out of it, but there aren't named individual users in it. (That would be a very lengthy list!)

The lawsuit is frivolous on a few degrees (IMO), but AOL has agreed to settle and enable the Footer Ad to be removed by all users voluntarily. You don't have to do anything to get that.

I am not a lawyer, but I wouldn't concern each other with the details of this, because neither of us are the named parties. :)

aolisadork · 3 months ago

WTF? After I went to http://footer.aol.com/ and unchecked the "Show the message footer at the bottom of each email you send" box I haven't been able to sign on to AOL. My feeling about this is "BIG F'ing DEAL" I only used aol for junk mail anyway. If aol vanished into thin air I couldn't care any less.

Joseph Manna · 2 months ago

This should have no impact on signing onto AOL. It's sad to see they still have reliability issues even after millions of users have left the service.

For reference, the Footer Ad is the text-based ad that is inserted automatically into e-mails when they are sent. Not the graphical ad placed below the inbox or when writing email.

AOL is fading away quickly from mainstream. In the world of email marketing, MSN/Live/Hotmail reigns as #1, Yahoo as #2 and Gmail as #3 ISPs people choose.