AOL Terms and Conditions -- Revealed!
Several people on this list responded to my prior queries about dealing with AOL and their black-hole "anti-spam" policy. I've been around and around with AOL, and have finally decided that I'm *NOT* going to agree to their 'terms'. With the agreement of my laywer, I've posted the terms to which I was being asked to agree. http://www.mailinglists.org/aol.html Have a nice weekend! AlanC -- Alan Clegg I do UNIX and Networks alan@clegg.com I don't have any certification I have experience
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 09:57:43PM -0400, Alan Clegg wrote:
*NOT* going to agree to their 'terms'. With the agreement of my laywer, I've posted the terms to which I was being asked to agree.
It's official; AOL's lawyers are completely out of their minds. That list should in and of itself be enough to allow committal for 72-hour observation. They don't even follow all of those themselves. Stick to your guns, Alan.
At 3:31 PM -0400 4/28/01, Shawn McMahon wrote:
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 09:57:43PM -0400, Alan Clegg wrote:
*NOT* going to agree to their 'terms'. With the agreement of my laywer, I've posted the terms to which I was being asked to agree.
It's official; AOL's lawyers are completely out of their minds.
That list should in and of itself be enough to allow committal for 72-hour observation.
They don't even follow all of those themselves.
Does anyone know if AOL has tried to impose those terms on "big names" (e.g., Listbot, yahoogroups, etc.)? I can't picture a major competitor to AOL (such as Microsoft or Yahoo) agreeing to abide by the AOL TOS, among the many other ludicrous things in there.... :) D -- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd@megacity.org | "Conan! What is best in life?" | | Derek J. Balling | "To crush your enemies, see them | | | driven before you, and to hear the | | | lamentation of their women!" | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
I can't picture a major competitor to AOL (such as Microsoft or Yahoo) agreeing to abide by the AOL TOS...
Why not? As soon as your packet enters AOL, it must comply with their TOS, or they may drop it.
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd@megacity.org | "Conan! What is best in life?" | | Derek J. Balling | "To crush your enemies, see them | | | driven before you, and to hear the | | | lamentation of their women!" | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
-bryan bradsby Texas State Government Net
On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 23:24:49 CDT, Bryan Bradsby said:
As soon as your packet enters AOL, it must comply with their TOS, or they may drop it.
The problem is that what you mention is a *long* way from the actual situation, where Alan Clegg's organization - which hosts mailing lists that are posted to by <gasp> *users*, has to agree that nothing will ever be posted that violates the AOL TOS *before any traffic will be accepted at all*. Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
Shawn McMahon wrote:
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 09:57:43PM -0400, Alan Clegg wrote:
*NOT* going to agree to their 'terms'. With the agreement of my laywer, I've posted the terms to which I was being asked to agree.
It's official; AOL's lawyers are completely out of their minds.
Blow-by-blow: 1. All mail to AOL's member base from Mailinglists.org must be solicited (i.e. there is an existing and provable relationship between the email recipient and the sender). [ I have no problem with this ] 2. Each mailing must state how the AOL members' e-mail addresses were obtained (i.e. purchase from Barnes & Noble, sign up for Preview Travel discounts, etc.). [ I have no problem with this ] 3. The e-mail must state whether this is a one-time mailing or a recurring mailing. [ I have no problem with this ] 4. All mail must be RFC compliant. [it ought to be anyhow] 5. Mailinglists.org must not do anything that tries to obfuscate the sender of the mail and sending site of email. [they shouldn't be doing this anyhow] 6. All Mailinglists.org mail servers connecting to AOL's relay servers must be closed to 3rd party relaying. [they ought to be anyhow] 7. All Mailinglists.org mail servers connecting to AOL's relay servers must have valid reverse-DNS lookups. [certainly a good idea] 8. Mailinglists.org may not hardcode AOL's mx records into their configuration files. [Correct - there is no reason at all that they should be doing so] 9. Connections from dynamically assigned IP addresses (dialup accounts) will not be accepted to our relay servers. [I don't have a problem with this] 10. If a change in IP address or mailserver were to occur, Mailinglists.org must inform AOL of these changes within 48 hours of expected implementation. [ok, I think *this* is stupid] 11. Any mail sent to AOL members must conform to AOL's Terms of Service. [As is this] 12. All mailings from Mailinglists.org must have valid list removal instructions in the text of every email. Removal instructions must be obvious, clear, and easily understood - preferably a link to a one-click unsubscribe mechanism located at the top of the mail. [Requires a little work, but doable, and a good idea since AOL members don't tend to be the most computer-savvy people in the world. Will very likely save list administrators some work!] 13. All mail from Mailinglists.org must have a valid non-internet (a phone number, a snail mail address, etc.) contact in the text of every message. [this is ridiculous] 14. Mailinglists.org must immediately unsubscribe any AOL email address for which Mailinglists.org receives a permanent failure mail bounce from AOL's Mailer-Damon. [this, however, is not ridiculous] 15. AOL reserves the right to discontinue delivery of mail from an internet sender for any reason or no reason whatsoever. [they have always had this right; there is no obligation for AOL to receive mail from a third party with whom they have no contract] 16. In no way does this agreement imply delivery, or timely delivery of mail from any sender. [see my comments on #15] 17. In the event AOL's service is impaired, AOL reserves the right to terminate any kind of support. [Not sure exactly what this means, as AOL isn't directly supporting mailinglists.org] 18. AOL will be watching and evaluating all third party bulk mailings. Should AOL determine in any way that these rules have been violated, Mailinglists.org will be notified within 24 hours of this determination, and any future mailings may not be delivered. The primary contact for notification at Mailinglists.org is Alan Clegg. [They have the right to do this] 19. This list is not to be distributed beyond AOL and Mailinglists.org. [oops] 20. In no way does this agreement imply any affiliation, membership, or endorsement of business or activities/practices of Mailinglists.org by AOL. Furthermore, the terms and existence of this agreement are confidential and may not be disclosed by Mailinglists.org without prior written approval by AOL. [Standard clause] --END TERMS--
Stick to your guns, Alan.
Wellllll..... there are a few incredibly dumb requirements, but the majority of them are actually reasonable. If they don't follow their own rules, that's another thing altogether, but after they implemented some spam-filtering on THEIR customers, my AOL spamload has dropped to almost nil... IMHO AOL has certainly been responsible with respects to cutting *way* down on the amount of spam coming from their networks, so this isn't a case of "pot, kettle, black." -- Tired of Earthlink? Get JustTheNet! Nationwide Dialup, ISDN, DSL, ATM, Frame Relay, T-1, T-3, and more. EARTHLINK AMNESTY PROGRAM: Buy a year, get two months free More info coming soon to http://JustThe.net, or e-mail me!
participants (6)
-
Alan Clegg -
Bryan Bradsby -
Derek Balling -
Shawn McMahon -
Steve Sobol -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu