AOL aware of PR crisis

Steve Rubel seems to have evoked a response from AOL PR about the draconian new AIM terms of service, in the comments to his AOL’s TOS Change Sparks PR Crisis entry at Micro Persuasion / MicroPerfusion:

UPDATE: AOL PR is listening and they chime in via comments to this post.

The blogosphere is buzzing this morning over a major privacy change to AOL Instant Messenger’s Terms of Service. The change is sparking outrage because of this quote…

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.

If I were working with AOL, I would call a huddle this morning to get
out there talking about this with a blog and/or other means. The hasn’t started covering this yet. They can start to turn the car around
if they act now. However, it may soon be too late. Houston Chronicle veteran tech reporter Dwight Silverman already has it up on his weblog.


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