AOL Monitoring

[Uncle Bill]

I guess that I'm just naive, but something really surprised me the other day. An on-line friend from this site got notified by AOL that I was on-line while he was. Apparently, he has me listed as a buddy, so AOL notifies him when I'm emailing. The thing is, I don't even have an AOL account -- I actually try to stay away from AOL as much as possible (partially due to all the stories about them on this site). The idea that AOL has this kind of knowledge about my time on-line even though it isn't my IPO or email service is really scary to me, but it reminds me of something that an IT guy at my last company admonished me: "Don't ever write anything in an email that you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the New York Times".

 

It also reminds me of messages that I've received a couple times (the last was over a year ago) from someone on AOL with a vague threat about catching me the next time I hired an escort. The strange thing is that I know everyone with an AOL address who I've ever sent a message to, and none of them would have been the source of such a note, so it had to be someone with broad access to messages sent through AOL.

 

Would anyone care to share with the rest of us just what capabilities AOL and others have in tracking our on-line activities (be it email or internet)?

[guyinsf]

My only guess -- and this IS just a guess -- is that it might be related to AOL's Instant Messaging system. I understand that you can use that even if you are not an AOL member, but I may be wrong. Are you sure you didn't install on your system the software to run this program?

[Uncle Bill]

I've never used (or tried to use) instant messaging on AOL. Every once in a while, I'll install software, and an AOL offer pops up with it, but I always delete anything I see having to do with AOL.

[Guest Atomic]

There are alot of things aol can now do. AOL keeps track of any and every email address that a user has sent an email to. Through this tracking they can do just what you described, see who you(a non-aol user) send emails to, and get your personal info. They use this info to allow them to know when you are online, where you have gone, and put together a marketing scheme on you. The also have the ability to cross reference where there users send email for the purpose of knowing what there users are doing. All escorts who use AOL have for the most part had there service suspended for using aol to advertise but they also see if you are sending emails to this and other such sites to catergorize your activites. If you fit enough of there profile for either an escort or a client they will burn you also. I have blocked all emails from aol users. Yahoo, MSN, and ATT have the same ability and they all share info. I only use yahoo or hotmail for activites that would not be deemed as counter-culture. Your best bet to avoid these traps is to use a local ISP. There are several programs out there that can also mask your activities but lately these programs have been raising red-flags to all sorts of agencies. I do all my business through addresses outside of the country but that is becoming difficult also. I have just resigned myself to the fact that there is nothing privite in America anymore. Don't be worried they know what is on the net and who you are, they just don't have the man-power to bust everyone, yet?

[Flower]

>I've never used (or tried to use) instant messaging on AOL.

 

 

If you sign on to aol for email purposes, you're signed on for all purposes--if your friend has entered your aol Screen name in his IM set up menu either in AOL Buddy listing or AIM and I believe some of the others like MSN and apple.com, then your SN goes to anyone who has you listed in their buddy list on their IM set up, as being on line.

 

If for whatever reason you don't want this to happen, then go to aol or aim privacy preferences in the set up menu for Buddy List and change it--with any of the several options. Aol is not doing the monotoring--its all part of the system--there's a lot there and would be worth your while to become familiar with it--despite all the aol trash talk, I like using it more than my regular isp email. Good luck and Happy New Year.

[Flower]

> If you

>fit enough of there profile for either an escort or a client

>they will burn you also.

 

Maybe we could have an example of a "a client" getting burned from communications with an escort. Your post seems a little extreme, but then what do I know :+

[Guest fukamarine]

>Would anyone care to share with the rest of us just what

>capabilities AOL and others have in tracking our on-line

>activities (be it email or internet)?

 

I find it hard to believe that all this monitoring wouldn't be considered as an invasion of privacy. It certainly should be and there should be laws against it. Are you sure there are not? If it were happening in the post office there would be.

 

fukamarine

[Boston Guy]

Oh, my gosh, there is so much misinformation in your post that I don't know where to begin.

 

I guess, to start, if you are not on AOL, AOL is not tracking who you send email to or "getting your personal information." Neither, for that matter, are other ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who you are not using to send email -- even if you're connected to them while sending email.

 

For example, suppose you have Verizon as your DSL provider and you log onto the Net with DSL. You then connect to AOL through TCP/IP. At that point, you're connected to two ISPs: Verizon and AOL. AOL will most definitely track the email that you send or receive through AOL, as you want them to do. That's a big part of why you sign up with them. Ditto for your other ISPs. However, suppose you then use Outlook to send some email via Verizon. AOL will not be aware of this email message or track it in any way (unless it was to an AOL email account) or even care about it. For the record, I will not claim the same thing is true insofar as the federal governments email tracking schemes are concerned.

 

Certainly some ISPs, including the larger ones, build profiles on their users. My guess is that this will include aggregated information about how heavy an email user this person is, what domains they send mail to, etc. I also think they use aggregated information for all of their users to both fine tune their technology and determine marketing strategies.

 

I do not think that AOL or any of the other reputable ISPs cares who you send mail to, whether it be to your Aunt Tillie or HotStud4HotSex.

 

I've been an AOL user for years and years and years. I've communicated with what must be hundreds of escorts over those years, all through AOL. Neither I nor the escorts I communicate with have been "burned" by AOL. However, AOL has very clear Terms of Service (TOS). They very clearly think of themselves as being "America Online" and want to appeal to a broad spectrum of the population, simply because that's the way they believe they can most effectively increase their business. They very much want to be the American "Main Street" online.

 

Consequently, their TOS is designed to prevent what they consider to be rude or inappropriate behavior online and they don't want public personas to be defined in a way that is inappropriate for viewing by children. Frankly, I support this. Literally millions of kids use AOL and they can all look at people's profiles.

 

It doesn't take much imagination to use AOL in a way that gets your message across and yet isn't completely in-your-face about sex and prostitution. Most escorts seem to have figured this out and have simply rewritten the more explicit parts of their profile to make them less explicit.

 

If I were an escort and I expected to make a business of it for any time at all, I'd spend $35 to register a domain name for myself -- http://www.sexxxyguy.com or some such thing. I'd get a lowcost ISP to host the domain for a few bucks a month just so I could have email at that domain (joe@sexxxyguy.com) and, if I wanted, put up a Web site as well. Then I'd most certainly get an AOL account as well that referred to the other one.

 

On balance, over the years, it's my belief that AOL has been extremely supportive of the gay community, in ways that few other institutions have been. As an employer, it's supportive to its gay employees. As an ISP, it provides countless public forums for gay people and has for years -- at a time when it wasn't favored by lots of other people in the US.

 

But, AOL is a business and it has its rules. They provide lot of opportunities for gay people to meet, whether escorts or other non-escorts but you have to play by their rules. I don't find them onerous at all.

 

Finally, as to the other remarks in your post, the paranoia is overwhelming and not justified.

 

BG

[+ deej]

Well said, BG.

[Guest ncm2169]

Whoa!! Probable False Alarm. x( I'm the email "friend" mentioned, and I think I'm unwittingly responsible for this post (which I've communicated to Uncle Bill privately). I jumped to a conclusion which, AOL informs me, was incorrect. AOL says they have NO WAY of tracking my email contacts, if they are non-AOL members or non-AOL Instant Messenger users (I, hopefully not naively, believe them). As a previous posted has noted, for a non-AOL member/non-AOL Instant Messenger user, only that person's ISP/Server would know if he/she was online.

 

Sorry if I accidentally caused alarm here. :o

 

That said, CLEARLY we all should be aware of online privacy issues. I'm not particularly concerned about an AOL "vast conspiracy", but I still refuse to use my credit card or a bank debit to access an adult site (escort or otherwise). Since I have a PayPal account, if they'll accept that, I MIGHT consider it.

 

Any other observations about that issue?? :+

[+ deej]

>I find it hard to believe that all this monitoring wouldn't

>be considered as an invasion of privacy.

 

Corporate environments are required to have e-mail policies and inform their employees what they are. Most places, the corporation owns the e-mail and "big brother is watching" (whether they do or not). In my current job, every e-mail addressed to me is copied to my boss automatically. (So I just don't use that account. ;-))

 

As long as the provider discloses to you their terms of service, they may do whatever the terms of service say. Have you read yours? ;-)

 

>It certainly should

>be and there should be laws against it. Are you sure there are

>not? If it were happening in the post office there would be.

 

Snail mail is handled by US Government employees and delivered point-to-point. E-mail travels across an ownerless network of interconnected computers (the Internet) that belongs to no single jurisdiction. With no owner and no jurisdiction, who's gonna regulate it? In other words, it's that "horse of a different color you've heard-tell about". :9

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

The Escort Perspective on the Evil Which is AOL

 

>Well said, BG.

 

Full agreement with you on this point, Deej.

 

From the escort perspective, AOL has deleted escort screen names and profiles, mine included, for the following reasons, among others: (1) advertising in chat rooms scrolls, particularly for adult activity, sexual situations, or by including a link. For those who do not know, in AOL parlance, chat room scrolls are the PUBLIC conversations which every member of the chat room can view. Any links in chat room scrolls, by anyone, are considered a TOS violation, even if the member is not an escort. (2) violations of their Terms of Services (TOS) in your screen name or profile (however, these are often applied to non-escort members), for such words as HUNG, COCK, COCK SUCKER, TOP, BOTTOM, etc. The combination of words may also present a problem: "dominant" with the words "top Ford Escort," for example, or "great a$$ets" with the words "available" elsewhere in the profile.

 

In my care, I lost my original name "FRANCO 4 HIRE" because of the word 'for hire' in spite of the fact that many other members have the name.

 

That is because, as in all these instances, another AOL member is reported me (or another AOL escort) to the AOL Community Action Team (CAT). As Hoo Boy was pointing out nearly ten months ago, there was a guy on AOL with a screen name like REPORT THE HOS and there are other guys similarly inclined who simply wish to do so. I know several guys in San Diego (one is, unknowingly, the roommate of a guy who's boyfriend is an escort) who simply report every escort in an AOL chat room for TOS violations whether or not any were committed, just because they do not like Escorts in chat rooms, as this keeps these guys from "getting laid" for free.

 

If no actual violation took place, AOL takes no action. It might put the escort on a "to be watched" list, but of this I have no personal knowledge. AOL will even profusely express regret, as they did to me in November while I was in San Francisco, for locking my account up at 4:00 a.m. for the lame reason that I was conducting "too many member searches" - which as I pointed out to them, in this instance, was only one such search. They also immediately restored my access and gave me two months free for my inconvenience.

 

Finally, one thing that Boston Guy did not point out: Yahoo, MSN and AOL (as well as other ISPs like Earthlink), are competitors, who have no reason for sharing information. When you sign up for Yahoo and MSN, you are given the option of OPTING OUT of your information being shared, which is usually consumer information (where are you buying books, cars, etc.) being shared with large companies, not competitors.

 

You should OPT OUT, if you have not already. You may also write to your e-mail service provider and request that your information not be shared and that your on line use not be monitored.

 

Individuals should also learn and practice SAFER surfing, by deleting cookies, cleaning cache files, etc.

 

If I can find the links to privacy, I will post them otherwise, though I have a feeling BG has them handier than I do....

[+ deej]

RE: The Escort Perspective on the Evil Which is AOL

 

<<If I can find the links to privacy, I will post them otherwise, though I have a feeling BG has them handier than I do....

>>

 

http://www.privacy.org is probably the best place to start.

 

One note about opt-out: they haven't always been forthright about this. Anyone with a hotmail account more than a year old should go into account settings and check their setting. When hotmail opted to *provide* opt-out (which they didn't originally), they defaulted existing accounts to OPT-IN!

 

ALL of the online vendors are guilty of some affront to privacy somewhere along the line. AOL got sued for outing a gay sailor to Naval officials, for instance.

 

If there's ANY question in your mind, go check your account settings.

[+ Lucky]

AOL has thirty million customers. I don't really believe they would go to the expense of sorting out your mail for perverse reasons, such as do you send email to escorts.

Our paranoia should be reserved for Ashcroft, etc. Of course, then it is not paranoia because his threat is real.

[guyinsf]

I agree that it's absurd to think that aol is doing that much monitoring. I think that history shows the real reason escorts' profiles get deleted is that someone got upset with them (for whatever reason, maybe something as simple as seeing them in chat rooms) and reporting them to AOL. AOL saves face by going after problems identified by its users.

 

Does anyone really believe that if AOL intended to get rid of escorts online that it would be difficult for them to do so? If I can so easily find escorts on AOL when I want to, why couldn't AOL have programs running to flag the "offending" profiles and then have them reviewed by their censors? AOL obviously could do that but they aren't doing so because they would lose a lot of $$$.

 

I have no problem with people not liking AOL or advising people to use other services. I just think that people need to be rational in their arguments about this and not be so quick to assume that AOL is monitoring every users' every keystroke.

[Michael]

>

>That said, CLEARLY we all should be aware of online privacy

>issues. I'm not particularly concerned about an AOL "vast

>conspiracy", but I still refuse to use my credit card or a

>bank debit to access an adult site (escort or otherwise).

>Since I have a PayPal account, if they'll accept that, I MIGHT

>consider it.

>

 

What exactly is your concern about using a credit card to

subscribe to an adult site? Are you worried about unauthorized

charges, or about the credit card company finding out what

you are spending your money on?

 

I have a PayPal account and have never had any problems with

it, but PayPal doesn't have a particularly good reputation and

I have refused to become a "verified" member since that requires

me to give them details of my bank account.

 

By contrast, credit cards give the consumer pretty good protection

against unscrupulous merchants and I quite happily use my credit

cards online for all sorts of things (including a few adult site

memberships).

[+ deej]

>By contrast, credit cards give the consumer pretty good

>protection

>against unscrupulous merchants and I quite happily use my

>credit

>cards online for all sorts of things (including a few adult

>site

>memberships).

 

This is actually an excellent point.

 

You're safer using a credit card online than you are using e-mail.

 

Sad, but true.

[Uncle Bill]

I was glad to hear about the apparent false alarm, but the responses have been interesting to read in any case. My apologies for any trouble caused.

 

However, the part about getting emails threatening to catch me hiring escorts is true, and they were generated by someone with an AOL email address and who I am sure is completely unrelated to anyone I've ever emailed with an AOL address. Did anyone else get one (or more) of these? They were from an address such as "gonnacatchyou@aol.com" or something similar, and said something like "nothing good can come of hiring escorts" followed by some other vaguely threatening wording about the next time I tried to hire. I'm not trying to stir up anything against AOL, I'm just curious.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Gonna Catch YOU

 

>However, the part about getting emails threatening to catch

>me hiring escorts is true, and they were generated by someone

>with an AOL email address and who I am sure is completely

>unrelated to anyone I've ever emailed with an AOL address.

>Did anyone else get one (or more) of these? They were from an

>address such as "gonnacatchyou@aol.com" or something similar,

>and said something like "nothing good can come of hiring

>escorts" followed by some other vaguely threatening wording

>about the next time I tried to hire. I'm not trying to stir

>up anything against AOL, I'm just curious.

 

 

I would strongly urge you to call America On Line and asked to be connected to one of the Terms of Service people and report this person for sending you such a clearly threatening note. By calling them, you will not need to send them an email, and thus identify yourself. You will, of course, need to have a recent e-mail from this person to do this.

 

Should they ask you to forward the email to them (and they will), offer to mail them a print out version with your e-mail and other identifying information redacted. Redacted means you "blank" or "white it" out and then photocopy the document. After all, you only need to do is prove this person exist and is sending out such e-mails.

 

Even if this person has closed this account, AOL will be able to find out who they are. It is a TOS violation to use their service to threaten other people.

 

Finally, as Hoo Boy constantly points out, the hiring of Escorts is perfectly legal in this country, so I would not concern yourself with this issue in speaking with AOL. The TOS representative is there to enforce actions against AOL members who commit violations, not against you or anyone else like you. I have often found myself speaking with TOS representatives who were clearly gay or otherwise sympathetic.

 

I have found that AOL can be very reasonable to deal with when you are prepared and are "in the right."

 

Good luck!

[guyinsf]

It's so easy to create a new screen name on aol, if only for a short time. Your scenario could be as simple as someone posing as an escort, you sending him email, and then him using another screen name to send an email threatening you because you hire escorts. Obviously this person has some knowledge that the person connected with your email address is interested in escorts. I wouldn't make too much of it, though. There are a lot of people on aol who like to play games, including some who like to pose as escorts for some reason or another. (I actually used to be willing to send a picture to someone I was interested in hiring, but I no longer do so because of this. I can understand a "legit" escort turning me down, but I doubt he would immediately log off and then delete his screen name simply because he didn't want to let me hire him.)

[Justice]

RE: Gonna Catch YOU

 

Good advice. However, there is a very real possibility that the e-mail is from a forged e-mail address. I used to report Spam to that come from AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo etc. e-mail address. In just about every instance I would receive a response saying that the e-mail address was a forgery.

[+ deej]

>However, the part about getting emails threatening to catch

>me hiring escorts is true, and they were generated by someone

>with an AOL email address and who I am sure is completely

>unrelated to anyone I've ever emailed with an AOL address.

 

I strongly urge you to forward that e-mail _AS IS_ to abuse@aol.com.

 

It's a CLEAR TOS violation and they'll track it down. They take them very seriously.

 

The email itself is proof that you received a threat. Unless it quotes something of yours, it reflects no involvement on your part in any activity whatsoever.

 

(abuse@ pretty much anywhere is a safe bet. I recently got an account killed @msn.com that way.)

 

Stalkers and jerkoff idiots who get their jollies by doing this stuff will only be stopped if you complain appropriately.

[Guest JackLA]

All the above is good information, but there are a few more details that might help. If you are an AOL member, you have the option to send instant messages to any other AOL member while they are online, and put that members name on your "buddy list" so you will know when they are online. If you don't want people to know you are online, there are several options in the "privacy" section of the "preferences" menu you can find under "settings" at the top of your screen. You can block EVERYBODY (and no one will know when you are online and be able to send you instant messages) or you can selectively type in certain names and just block certain people.

 

Beyond AOL members people on ANY server can download the instant messenger software which will also allow them to know when certain people are online and give them the option to send instant messages even though they are not AOL members. These people can also be blocked from knowing you are online by adding their screennames to the blocked privacy list in AOL's preferences section.