Another Reason to Hate America Online
Imagine if your cell phone company recorded every single conversation you had and stored all of them in a huge database someplace. Everything: From your plans to go to the mall after work to company trade secrets.
Imagine further that they could make this database available to anyone they wanted–including selling it to other companies or playing conversations on advertisements.
Let’s also pretend that the cell phone companies had the capacity to send this database (or portions of it) anywhere in the world and could keep all of the data forever.
Scary picture, isn’t it?
Well, under the new America Online Instant Messenger service’s Terms of Service, they claim the right to do all of the above with your conversations on AIM.
Here’s the relevant portion of the Terms of Service agreement, my emphasis:
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.
(via SlashDot)
March 12th, 2005 at 7:52 pm
It will be interesting to see if AOL can legally support business use of the written words of its users. Copyright of one’s own written work automatically goes to the writer of a work. Normally, the copyright is transferred only by sale or express permission. I can see that AOL can claim a right to preserve a database of written words, but I wonder if a legal challenge against them when they try to reproduce works written by clients will succeed. We’ll have to wait until they run somebody else’s words and that person challenges them legally. But I am supposing they cannot claim ownership of a person’s written work unless that person gives them express permission.
Jeri
March 16th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Here’s an update about AOL backing off their original claims:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1776146,00.asp