|
Latest update:
1. Don't expect to receive any
legitimate mail if you have an AOL account. While AOL
routinely let through many viruses, legitimate emails from your
potential customers stand every chance of being blocked because of
their hypochondriac yet useless spam filter.
2. Although AOL briefly played
at being a proper ISP they no longer allow the routing of 3rd party
emails using their SMTP servers. So if you have a private
email address associated with your own domain name you cannot use it
is AOL is your (lack of) service provider.
There has never been a better time to
leave AOL.
Below is an email from
AOL 12 months after I first wrote this page. The blue writing is
the original page and the green is my comment. The comments from
AOL are now mostly false and my original comments are correct again.
Further comments in red
Hi Liam
I am not sure if you are the right person to contact - if not please
could you pass this email on.
We have noticed the comments on your website - you may not like AOL,
but it is clearly not appropriate to publish opinion masquerading as
fact. I have detailed some points below - please could you correct
your website as soon as possible.
As noted below, if you have a specific service issue with AOL, I would
be happy to get someone to speak with you in that regard.
Many thanks
Jonathan
AOL does not support the routing of non AOL
e-mails through their servers. therefore if you have your own domain
name then you will be unable to send mail from a personalised e-mail
address via AOL. all other ISPs allow you to use their SMTP engines
to relay third-party e-mails.
This is incorrect. We recently started redirecting all
outbound port 25 traffic through our own mail complex to prevent spam
that was using this method to avoid spam filters. However, you can
still send and receive from another email address via AOL. {That is definitely progress}
{Unfortunately they have reversed this so are back to
square one.}
furthermore AOL have introduced a hypochondriac
spam filter which is throwing out as much
wanted e-mail as it is filtering out unwanted mail. as an AOL
customer you will not be
aware of this until somebody rings you up to tell you mail is being
returned.
We filter out around 2 billion spam emails a day at a network level
before it reaches our members. This is based on reports from our
members on what they say is spam. All ISPs that attempt to stop
spam reaching their customers will potentially block a small number of
legitimate emails in the process, but that is a consequence of the
actions of spammers, not the ISPs. AOL is working constantly to
minimise this by refining our filters. {What
they should do is provide choice so that if you do not want to lose
customers you can turn off the spam filter and if you like losing
customers you can turn it back on again}
AOL is not designed for businesses. it is for
children. island webservices would respectfully suggest that
customers choose another ISP.
We are well known for being family friendly, but we only accept
customers over 18 years of age so the above is clearly incorrect.
{If they aren't aiming at children why do
they supply Toy-Town software? The browser looks like it came
out of the Early Learning Centre and my mobile phone has a better
email program then AOL's.}
AOL does not allow its customers to use its SMTP
engine to send from personalised email addresses
Incorrect as stated above. {At long last} {Unfortunately letting their customers use the same
service as every other ISP didn't last long.}
AOL does not support Outlook Express or Outlook
It has been possible for more than a year to use either product -
or any standard email product in fact - to send and receive email over an
AOL connection. {Excellent news.
Only 9 years after Windows 95 is introduced, AOL allows you to use
Outlook Express}
AOL has a spam filter which removes legitimate emails if it has
blacklisted you. it is very very easy to get blacklisted being
blacklisted by AOL means the entire IP address is blocked - taking
down thousands of users as once
This comment does not even make sense. If an IP
address is blocked, it stops email from reaching its destination,
(potentially from just one sender or more), but it does not "take
down" anyone. If a web host is blocked, such as your service, then it
will block all senders from reaching AOL until the spam issue is
resolved. The majority of web hosting companies are happy to work with
us to ensure they are not allowing spam to be sent and we are happy to
advise any company on how they can be whitelisted by AOL. Please let
me know if you would like someone to contact you in this regard.
{I thought that was what I said?
It's only taken them 12 months to get back to me.}
AOL is difficult to remove from your computer
We have millions of customers and we have not found this to be the
case, except on isolated occasions. Please clarify such a sweeping
statement. {Perhaps an uninstall
might help the process} {In 2006 they are still persisting with infecting
customers with their software.}
--
Jonathan Lambeth
Director of Communications, AOL UK
AOL (UK) Ltd.
80 Hammersmith Road, London W14 8UD
United Kingdom
email: jonathanlambeth@aol.com
URL: www.aol.co.uk
|
