AIM Privacy Scam

Ah, the internet. Home to so much connectivity and convenience, so much ability and information. It seems as though everyone I know uses it in one way or another, if only to use email or check the local weather...even my father checks out sports stories, and my mother stays (somewhat) hip to the latest music. The ability to expoit the resources available is not merely limited to us end users, however, and AOL is taking its own advantage of the world wide web's relative childhood and unregulated nature.

AOL announced their new terms of service recently, in which they boldy declare that any information you or I send over AIM or any AIM-compatible service essentially belongs to them, and they can use it any way they want. This includes your "lol"s, your cameraphone pics, audio and video chats, and anything else you send across IM. We might as well grant the USPS the right to open every letter they handle and do what they want with the contents. I see this as a blatant, albeit not yet illegal, invasion of our privacy.

So how do we deal with the AOL eye looking constantly over our shoulders? There seem to be three basic choices: deal with it and don't send sensitive information over IM, encrypt everything you do send, or stop using AIM altogether. I am at a point where I rely on IM as a major means of communication, so I don't want to give it up, and I already employ a "no sensitive information" rule. My favorite client, iChat, has no kind of encryption capability (so far as I know), and some of the other mac-happy clients do not have audio nor video chat capabilities. Ugh...if anyone knows of an easy encryption method for IM, lemme know.

AOL is now more of a bullshit organization than ever. Do we need some new kind of onine legislation? If so, what should it address? In what ways would any new kind of regulation affect us, and what we currently are able to get away with?

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