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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:03 pm
by BigHead
but u were also a AOL subscriber

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:30 pm
by buster
just about everyone in the ao-scene waz an aol subscriber at one point

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:53 pm
by jester22c
buster wrote:just about everyone in the ao-scene waz an aol subscriber at one point
I'm proud to never have been. I also know a good number of people who never were that are AIM users. I guess it depends on your circle of friends...

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:55 pm
by Robpol86
lol i still am. even though we had broadband for more than a year and we dont use aol any more, my dad still payes for it, im not shure y

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 1:24 am
by Timelessblur
I was once under an AOL subscrishi (I still have the screen name but I never use it.) I had AIM before we went to aol

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:18 am
by Plasma2002b
yes... i too was part of the plague called AOL....

it was the first time we ever got the internet...... so its not that bad.

That was back with version 2 i believe.

in the days of Windows 3.1 8)

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 5:30 am
by Michael
I've never been an AOL subscriber, ever. I realized they sucked early on. ;)

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 7:30 am
by Anthony
I was with AOL for about a year, but I never sent a single IM through AOL... Having AOL was not a factor in using AIM I guess is my point.

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:06 am
by fuuucckkers
I was an AOL user for about 5 years. :o
Started back on AOL version 3. But luckily I jumped off the bandwagon at version 6..... :-?

Too long if you ask me. I was trying to have my dad get Road Runner for years. He finally decided to do it, when he got sick of all the pr0n mail that AOL does nothing about... :D

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:55 am
by Timelessblur
x Wasted Mind x wrote:I was an AOL user for about 5 years. :o
Started back on AOL version 3. But luckily I jumped off the bandwagon at version 6..... :-?

Too long if you ask me. I was trying to have my dad get Road Runner for years. He finally decided to do it, when he got sick of all the pr0n mail that AOL does nothing about... :D
Yeah my aol email address when I had it was getting more porn mail than my hotmail addresses does and I personly think that pretty sad. AOL just wants money so it sells off it uses email address proble to anyone willing ot pay for it

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 11:08 am
by jester22c
AOL actually makes more money from selling their users email addresses to pr0n sites than from the $30/month (or whatever it is) that they charge. The resale of their userbase is their biggest market. Brings in billions. I think it was 9 billion last year. I'll see if I can find the paperwork on that...

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 11:58 am
by RansomedCaptive
jester22c wrote:AOL actually makes more money from selling their users email addresses to pr0n sites than from the $30/month (or whatever it is) that they charge. The resale of their userbase is their biggest market. Brings in billions. I think it was 9 billion last year. I'll see if I can find the paperwork on that...
it's ironic you say that, given the following article:
AOL escalates fight against spam
By Jonathan Krim, The Washington Post


America Online Inc. has launched an intensified legal assault on junk e-mail by filing five lawsuits against more than a dozen individuals and companies accused of being major purveyors of "spam."

AOL, THE NATION'S largest Internet service provider, with 27 million subscribers, said the targets of its suits were responsible for sending its members an estimated 1 billion pieces of spam that resulted in more than 8 million complaints. The unsolicited messages contained such things as pornographic images, body-enhancement offers, and diet and financial schemes.
The barrage of lawsuits reflects a heightened industry, legal and legislative effort to combat spam, which has grown so rapidly that it accounts for nearly 40 percent of e-mail traffic and is estimated to cost U.S. businesses $8 billion to $10 billion a year.

"Clearly, our anti-spam message is made more audible when the volume is turned up," said AOL spokesman Nicholas J. Graham. For the first time, Graham said, AOL is using member complaints about spammers as the basis for legal action.

The defendants in the lawsuits "are some of the leadership targets in the war against spam," he said. "They operate the command and control facilities in the ongoing fight to get spam into the inboxes of our members."

Most of the major Internet providers, including EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and AOL, have sued or are suing spammers and their affiliates. But as individual and corporate computer users get increasingly irate at the rising tide of spam, many Internet providers say they are ramping up their legal efforts, even invoking federal anti-racketeering statutes.

BIG DAMAGES SOUGHT
The AOL suits, filed in federal court in Alexandria, seek a total of $10 million in damages and a halt to the spammers' e-mail activities under a number of state anti-spam and federal computer-fraud laws. Four of the suits were filed yesterday; one was filed late Friday. The suits single out two spammers by name, including one Maryland-based seller of quick-weight-loss products and anti-virus computer software, and an alleged affiliated spammer in Washington state. Other defendants are as yet unidentified because AOL isn't certain who they are; spammers often disguise their ownership of computers that generate spam.

Spammers, who send out hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages at almost no cost, rely on increasingly sophisticated tactics to find computer users. Even those Internet users who avoid advertising their e-mail addresses may not avoid spam, because some spammers use computer programs to randomly generate likely addresses.

Atlanta-based EarthLink also has been active on the legal front, with lawsuits pending against more than 100 spammers. In one case decided last year, the company won a $25 million judgment against a Tennessee-based spammer.

Microsoft, which has focused legal efforts on stopping spammers from using software to "harvest" e-mail addresses from Web sites, said it plans significantly increased legal action this year.

Efforts to get Congress to pass the first federal anti-spam legislation also have kicked into high gear.

Last week, Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) reintroduced anti-spam legislation that failed in the last congressional session amid opposition by the direct-marketing industry.

The bill, which has the support of the major Internet service providers, would impose criminal penalties if bulk e-mailers disguise their identities and do not provide valid means of unsubscribing from e-mail lists. Currently, when users click the "unsubscribe" link in hopes of removing themselves from e-mail lists, they often are merely confirming their e-mail address for spammers to use later or to sell to other bulk e-mailers.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is preparing similar legislation, but his bill also would create a national do-not-spam registry akin to a do-not-call telemarketers' list that the Federal Trade Commission recently set up to battle unsolicited telephone sales.

Schumer said the telemarketing registry has been a major success and his bill would make it equally easy for computer users to place themselves on a list that would bar bulk e-mailers from sending them unsolicited commercial e-mail.

House bills are also expected.

MARKETERS URGE CAUTION
The Direct Marketing Association, which lobbies for many companies that send commercial e-mail, wants fraudulent spammers stopped. But the industry worries about any legislation that would infringe on the ability of legitimate marketers to get their messages out.

So far, the association has praised Burns and Wyden for starting the debate on the issue and has said it will support some form of anti-spam legislation. But the group stopped short of endorsing the Burns-Wyden bill.

On the flip side, many technologists in the anti-spam community argue that only a ban on all unsolicited commercial e-mail will make a dent in the problem.

Most online marketers, and some of the Internet providers themselves, currently operate with an "opt-out" system in which users must actively choose not to receive commercial e-mail. So far, these firms have opposed moving to an "opt-in" system, whereby unsolicited mail would not be sent unless users specifically asked for it.

In the suits filed yesterday, AOL alleges that George A. Moore Jr., head of Maryland Internet Marketing Inc. in Linthicum, sent spam for cut-rate mortgages and packages of anti-virus software through another alleged spammer named in the suits, Michael Levesque of Washington state.

The suit alleges that Levesque also sent an extensive amount of porn-related spam. He could not be reached for comment.

Moore, who also sells health and weight-loss products such as Fat-N-Emy and Extreme Colon Cleanser, said he had not yet seen the lawsuit.

But he said that recent harassment by anti-spam vigilantes, including several death threats, is causing him to get out of the online sales business.

Moore gained notoriety when his home address and other information were posted on the Internet by an Ellicott City man who urged people to sue known spammers.

Moore then went to court to get the site pulled down because of the harassment that resulted, but last week a Maryland district court judge refused.

"It's just not worth it anymore," Moore said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:05 pm
by Timelessblur
I would be happy when all the spaming company die. 3/4 of the email I get now it junk mail and 95% of the junk mail is for porn sites (hell one of them I gotten 4 times from 4 diffent domains and it the same email)

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 1:46 pm
by jester22c
RansomedCaptive wrote:it's ironic you say that, given the following article:

They make even more money from the lawsuits and do well in the public eye... they've sure got it all figured out :-?

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2003 4:21 pm
by buster
x Wasted Mind x wrote:I was an AOL user for about 5 years. :o
Started back on AOL version 3. But luckily I jumped off the bandwagon at version 6..... :-?

Too long if you ask me. I was trying to have my dad get Road Runner for years. He finally decided to do it, when he got sick of all the pr0n mail that AOL does nothing about... :D
6 waz when it started kickin you off every 20 mins and took up about 20% of your system resources :|