AOL Terms and Conditions -- Revealed!

Steve Sobol sjsobol at NorthShoreTechnologies.net
Mon Apr 30 16:19:07 UTC 2001




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.
> >
> >       http://www.mailinglists.org/aol.html
>
> 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!






More information about the NANOG mailing list