Sunday, April 07, 2002

It's not AOL's fault!
A Philadelphia man -- a lawyer, of course -- is filing suit against AOL for defamation of character. Seems there's been a lot of spam originating from his daughter's account since last year, when AOL first threatened to suspend service over it. (!) When the lawyer complained to AOL, they replied (quite reasonably) that either someone had obtained his daughter's password, or her computer was infected with a virus.

He installed anti-virus software and scolded his daughter -- and let the matter drop. Apparently it never occurred to either of them to change the password.

A few weeks ago, daughter told dad that her friends had seen "terrible things" in her member profile. Dad took a look -- and wrote another sternly-worded letter to AOL. This March, AOL finally terminated the account. Now Dad is suing for slander and "identity theft".

It's not our fault. She was asleep when these messages were sent. It's AOL's responsibility not to let this happen!

"The security and integrity of a member's account is up to the member," he said. "If they see an e-mail that asks for their password and billing information, we tell them to never give that out."

Change the password, Dad.

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