Cory at BoingBoing.net points out that AOL has changed their AIM Terms of Service:
Many readers have written to point out that AOL’s new Terms of Service for AIM “include the right for AOL to use anything and everything you send through AIM in any way they see fit, without informing you. A sample passage: ‘…by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy.'”
The terms of service are for using the AIM software, but since iChat sends messages (including any files, etc. that you might send) over the AIM network, does this passage still apply? I don’t know. I suspect that Apple would need to send out a new version of iChat, even if the software didn’t change, that included a new contract to click through. I’ll be on the lookout.
Update: According to an eWeek article, AOL says that the wording refers to content that a user posts in a public area of the service.
America Online spokesman Andrew Weinstein, however, maintained that AOL does not monitor, read or review any user-to-user communication through the AIM network, except in response to a valid legal process.
Weinstein told eWEEK.com the clause in question falls under the heading “Content You Post,” meaning it only relates to content a user posts in a public area of the AIM service. “If a user posts content in a public area of the service, like a chat room, message board or other public forum, that information may be used by AOL for other purposes,” he explained.
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