ok, it looks like someone Ben Stanfield of MacSlash [ archive.org ] actually read the AOL Instant Messenger Terms Of Service and he blogged what he found [ archive.org ].
They basically say that they own every thing you type into an AIM message, and they you have no rights to it whatsoever, and specifically no privacy in what they do with it.
What an idiotic and audaciously arrogant thing to presume. This will generate a huge push back and they will retreat from this position as soon as someone inside PR finds out how many pissed off bloggers there are in the world, but is doesn’t matter because you have to be a real asshole to think this up in the first place. So, I’m done using AIM.
The rumor mill says that once the next version of OS X comes out, iChat and .mac will be Jabber friendly, and I hope that is the case, but until that happens, I’m going to be using the following address for instant messaging: imsmith@xmpp.us1
It is a public Jabber server you can find out about here [ archive.org ]. (I hope it works, and if it doesn’t I’ll be nomading around looking for a stable, secure, friendly home for my instant messaging needs.)
If you want to chat with me from now on, please get a Jabber account (there is a list of public servers here (http://www.jabber.org/network/)2 ) and if you are in a position to make decisions, set up a Jabber server for your organization and block AIM traffic at your border router to keep AOL from infecting the intellectual capital of your firm with their invasive ToS.
- this account is defunct ↩︎
- updated list at xmpp.org here ↩︎