p2pnet.net News:- We’ve just had an email from AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein saying, “The rumors flying around the Blogosphere” that AOL’s AIM Terms of have been weakened are completely “false” and asking us to “correct” our story.

Here’s Weinstein’s email:

First and foremost, AOL does not monitor, read or review any user-to-user communication through the AIM network, except in response to a valid legal process. The AIM privacy policy (which is part of the AIM TOS) makes that crystal clear:

AOL does not read your private online communications when you use any of the communication tools offered as AIM Products. If, however, you use these tools to disclose information about yourself publicly (for example, in chat rooms or online message boards made available by AIM), other online users may obtain access to any information you provide. “(emphasis added)” says the email, but it isn’t clear where the emphasis is meant to apply.

The second sentence of that same paragraph — and the related section of the AIM Terms of Service — is apparently causing the confusion. The related section of the Terms of Service is called “Content You Post” and, as such, logically and legally it relates only to content a user posts in a public area of the service.

If a user posts content in a public area of the service, like a chat room, message board, or other public forum, that information may be used by AOL for other purposes. One example of this might be a user who posts a “Rate a Buddy” photo and thus allows AIM to post it for other AIM users to vote on it. Another might be AOL taking an excerpt from a message board posting on a current news issue and highlighting it in a different area of the service. [Our emphasis.]

Such language is standard in almost all similar user agreements, including those from Microsoft and most online news publications (MSN and Houston Chronicle TOS excerpted below). That clause simply lets the user know that content they post in a public area can be seen by other users and can be used by the owner of the site for other purposes. [Our emphasis.]

Finally, there seems to be a misimpression that the change was recently made. In fact, the current AIM Terms of Service was last updated in February 2004 and has been in place for more than a year. The prior terms of service had very similar language reserving the same rights.

In short, AIM user-to-user communication has been and will remain private, the AIM TOS was not changed, and the TOS includes a standard clause on publicly posted material.

There you go.

If you’re interested in what AOL’s TOS says, head on over to the site. It’s intriguing.

Weinstein also points out the changes aren’t new – that the TOS was revised last year.

In the meanwhile, here, re-iterated, are the points which interested us in the first place, quoted from the TOS:

• AOL has the right to, “reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote” all content distributed across the chat network by users
• By, “posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium”
• “You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.”

Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net

============

See:-
our story – AOL kills AIM privacy, p2pnet, March 14, 2005

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2005 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 2414 times