Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

AOL is only around to protect you and is a great corporate and web citizen right? Wrong.

I personally found it funny in the last few years when AOL went on the massive anti-spam campaign. Great commercials and an entire PR campaign. And yes they actually did curb spam and went after some specific spammers. It was somewhat strange and ironic though because in years past much of the spam I had seen come across mail servers was FROM AOL or "Affiliates" or users and such. At any rate glad they changed that tactic.

Yet as it turns out, that and the little ruse about the "online" part of their name are not the only reasons to dislike them. They have been stealing from customers by way of making it difficult for people to end their service and offering incentives to "customer service" representatives who "dissuade" users from leaving.

In New York this tactic led the company directly to New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Sptizer has gone after all sorts of high profile companies and called out lots of bullshit (props to Spitzer), brokerages, insurance companies, hell entire INDUSTRIES have shaped up a bit due to his offices 'insistence'.

Recently Spitzer got AOL to agree to a $1.25 million "settlement" payment to the state of New York, imagine what the real stolen dollar amounts must be nationwide?

Now dont get me wrong, AOL is a business and they are trying to make money, understood. My issue here, and the heart of this case, is that if a user wants to quit the service that process should be very straightforward, easy, and take effect immediately. Stringing people out 30 days, making them wade through some silly phone tree or fax or postal mail process, etc, is bullshit, its stealing.