For Those Who Use IM For Business...

hatton

hatton

Perch
I just sent the following message out to all of my clients after reading the new AIM Terms of Service. I strongly suggest that anyone that uses Instant Messaging for business communications take the same action.

This isn't a scam or an urban legend, I got the text in my quote directly from the AOL website. Some may argue that it wouldn't hold up in court but I would think that by the time a court proceeding started the damage would have already been done.

Effective immediately I will no longer communicate business related matters using AOL Instant Messenger. In addition, I strongly advise every client that I work with to move their business related communications off any of AOL's products, be it their Internet service or Instant Messaging platform. This is due to the changes that AOL recently made to their Terms of Service Agreement as mentioned below:

(Found at http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp)
Second paragraph under the "Content You Post" section -
Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, 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.

With this statement inserted in their terms of service I find it impossible and irresponsible to continue using their service to communicate sensitive business related materials with my clients. After reading the Terms of Service for other messenger services I have decided to make myself available for business related communications via Yahoo Instant Messenger and MSN Instant Messenger.
Click to expand...
 
Wow, glad I don'tuse AIM anymore! MSN is so unreliable I am moving away from it as well.
 
I wonder how that affects those of us who don't use AIM for their IM client. For instance, I use Trillian or Qnext, so I can monitor several IM accounts at once - AIM, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, etc. If I am corresponding to another Trillian user, but we use our AIM identities to do so, does AOL still have access to our conversation? I feel kind of ignorant now that I realize I don't really know how Instant Messaging is handled!
 
Exactly, it doesn't sound like it's limited to a certain client.

I've checked the ICQ Terms of Service since ICQ Inc. (formerly Mirabilis) is owned by AOL, but they don't seem to have the same policies. Information is only considered public when you post on their message boards or when you communicate directly to ICQ Inc. User to user communication is considered private and will only be disclosed following court order and the like..

Of course, if you're paranoid you can always establish a secure encrypted session over ICQ or AIM (not sure if it exists for MSN) so all AOL or MS get to see is gibberish :p
 
With a properly encrypted MSN session it shouldn't be a problem.. public key encryption is still believed to be unbreakable within the timespan of a few eons.. Some symmetrical encryption is probably used once the key is negotiated, which may be susceptable to dictionary attacks to find out the key over time (a few centuries?^^), but it's rather unlikely :p
 
We use it for regular communications, but MSN is so unreliable it is a stretch to call it "regular"
 
Myeah, MSN is very unreliable for me as well.. Even when I can connect some messages just don't arrive :(

I'm stuck with MSN at the moment though, I use Trillian Pro and ICQ has done something that makes Trillian unable to connect to the network at the moment. I cba to install the official client yet, but if it doesn't get fixed I'll have to find something else that works :p
 
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