AOL weasels about its Terms of Service

Last night, I blogged about AOL's terms-of-service for its services, in which you waive your privacy right. AOL has done some interviews objecting to this, saying that the terms are only intended to reach to message-board postings.

I don't buy it for a second. If AOL meant "you waive privacy in your message board postings and not your AIM messages" they could say so.

And if they won't say so, why should we believe them?

Link

Update: J sez, "Apple's .Mac service lets you use the AIM network without clicking through AOL's TOS at all (you get to use your username@mac.com as your AIM name), and the .Mac TOS says nothing at all about AIM or AOL, and neither does Apple's privacy statement, which you agree to when agreeing to the .Mac TOS."

Update 2: CK sez, "iChat still uses AOL's servers, so technically all iChat chat sessions fall under the "using AOL services" aspect of AIM's TOS. The good news for Mac users is that the new version of iChat, due to be released with Tiger, supports Jabber."