UGN safenet UGN safenet
a reader responds to Fred Showker's -AOL Gone Bad- article in 60-Second Windows... AOL Gone Bad... when to cut and run?
Every once in a while I get a response to one of my 60-Second Window articles that just shouts to be reprinted so all readers can benefit from it. This is one case where the reader (name withheld by request) is having even more problems with AOL than I am -- and it attempting to do something about it.
S.B. writes in response to my article: AOL Gone Bad... when to cut and run?
Dear Fred,
THANK YOU! Your post on AOL's blind technology is perfect! I have just (and ludicrously so) become a victim of this technology.
I received and email from a group of family members (four out of 12 of them were AOL users). I replied to this family email and it seems one of them didn't know my email address and accused my response of being SPAM--even though my email address was one listed in the original sending of the mail!
AOL promptly issued a SPAM alert on my email address and my ISP inconsiderately did nothing to notify me when they shut down my outgoing email. It took me nearly a week to realize my emails weren't going through. I received no error messages, no communication from ISP or AOL. When I finally reached someone at my ISP I had learned that I had been accused of SPAM by AOL and they gave me this convoluted report. Even better, due to AOL's membership policy, they did not reveal the source of the complaint! So there I was, without an email address I had been using for over 7 years, accused of the Internet's filthiest crime--SPAM. I've been begging and pleading with both my ISP and AOL for some help with this issue. If you simply review the email included in the injunction, you'll see I was merely responding to a message that I was included on!
I have had to make a rash decision going forward. The latest release of my upcoming website will NOT allow AOL users to engage in any community activity or store purchases that require communication from my emails to theirs. I can't have a completely idiotic, or worse, a vindictive AOL user claiming my store's electronic receipt of their purchase was a SPAM mail. Imagine, my whole online store email system shut down by one accusation it would seem that I have no recourse against!
I'm not sure if I am legally able to do this, but I'm going to fight either way. I'm developing scripts that will check submitted email addresses for forums, chats and other community options as well as store purchases for an AOL email identification. If there is one, the script will fail and give them a link regarding our AOL user policy, which will also be available from the main navigation window of the site.
It seems sad and foolish that I have to go to such extremes, but I'm left wondering what I could actually do about it without covering myself this way.
My wife and I are beginning letter writing campaigns beginning with BBB and Attorney Generals and going up through Congress in a means to end this Internet tyranny. I am an American after all, and quite used to the fact that I'm innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around as AOL would have it.
Sincerely,
S.B.
from Petersburg, VA
------------------------------
We'd love to pass along your experiences to other readers. We'll keep your name confidential, if you like, or publish a link to your web site. Just post at: our online input form
------------------------------
Return to: the top of this page, or the INDEX for this department
Exit to: The User Group Network front page
Contact: The Editor, Webmaster or Membership Director
* Discuss Photoshop
* Discuss Desktop Publishing
* Critique your Web Site