Rather, he said, it wants to prevent instant-messaging companies from sending advertising, or selling the e-mail addresses of AOL users.

This is a constant frustration not only for AOL users but for those of us trying to communicate with them, too.

"A big danger is that one of them will be big enough to encourage AOL users to use a different e-mail service."

I've tried by blacklisting known proxies, although this also seems to affect legit AOL users.

And to be fair, some AOL users who do have multiple Internet connections, including me, had no problem with the installation.

Based on surveys of AOL users, my views are widely shared.

He will continue to oversee an initiative to safeguard user privacy, after an incident in which data about 650,000 AOL users was made public.

The earliest AOL users were able to get ordinary screen names.

The program would barrage random AOL users with instant messages like:

In it, a Microsoft executive writes that "the typical AOL user is a novice."