AOL IM BS

washingtonpost.com | Instant Messaging: Tear Down the Walls: "[AOL] consistently says [third-party AIM client] applications compromise the security of AOL’s own network by storing users' screen names and passwords beyond AOL’s control. That, however, doesn’t explain why the company still allows users of the long-defunct program Claris Emailer to retrieve their AOL mail remotely. Nor has AOL blocked every third-party IM program: Users of Odigo Inc.’s software have been able to access AOL’s network."

AOL also has two different IM proptocols. One is called OSCAR and is the one that the official AIM clients use. The other is TOC and is the protocol that AIM has opened up to allow FCC-mandated interoperability.

Clients that use the TOC protocol store the AOL screen name and password just like those that use OSCAR, but I don’t hear AOL saying that is a security risk. In fact, they designed it that way.

So why don’t third-party clients use TOC instead of butting heads with AOL over OSCAR? TOC is outdated and bug-ridden. It doesn’t support newer instant messaging features like file transfer, or even basic features like online status.

AOL doesn’t want third party apps connecting to AIM for a simple reason. If I can communicate with my AIM contacts without using AOL software, there is one less reason to use AOL. And there is one less thing that the vast AOL-TW empire has control over.

So next time you hear people discussing a company with dominant market share that is using predatory practices to prop up market share for another software package and squash competition, remember that they might not be talking about Microsoft.