AOL Has Updated Their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Policies

Here is an excerpt from an email sent to AOL Users,



AOL is working hard to change and improve the way we serve you across all aspects of our services. We have recently relaunched and improved many of our consumer experiences, including AOL.com and MapQuest.com. As we continue to improve AOL for you, some of the improvements are updating the ways that we interact with you and your information. As a result, we want to update you on our Terms of Service (TOS), which contains the agreements between you and AOL. In addition, we are also updating our Privacy Policy. Privacy is incredibly important to all of us and we want to present the updates to our privacy policy in a simplified format designed to help clarify what information we collect, how we use it, and the marketing preferences and online advertising choices available to you. Both the updated TOS and Privacy Policy are available online now and will take effect on March 31, 2011. For more information about AOL's Updated Terms of Service, just click here. To view AOL's Privacy Policy, just click here.

AOL On Twitter

Did you know that AOL has a Twitter page?

http://twitter.com/aol



AOL also has a Facebook page as well!

AOL Alert! - Maintenance on Sunday!

Here is the official word from the AOL website:

Alert: AOL will be performing maintenance on AOL Mail Sunday from 12AM-8AM. A subset of users may experience an inability to login or see mail if logged in until maintenance is complete.

Having Problems Getting To Your AOL Mail?

It seems that at least one person that I know of that belongs to AOL is having trouble accessing their AOL mail and I'm not talking about using the AOL software. I'm talking about trying to access their AOL mail via the Internet.

Since this is just happening today maybe there is some kind of glitch or some such other temporary problem.

Update!

I just checked on Twitter and AOLmail has posted that they are aware of the problem and are working on it!

Be Careful With Your AOL Billing Information!

I just got another spam email asking me to "update" my AOL billing information! I knew that this was a spam message right away because AOL has said time and time again that they will NEVER ask for one's billing information. One of the biggest giveaways of this particular spam email is that it asks you to verify your credit card information! When you get an email that says this you should feel a warning flag go up.

However if you want to make sure that this is not a valid email but am wondering if it was sent from AOL you should contact AOL directly and not click on the link that appears in the email that was sent to you.

Unfortunately a lot of scammers are making a lot of free money by scamming people this way!

AOL Will Be Cutting Jobs!

According to an online article AOL will be cutting jobs so that it can save millions of dollars.

You can read the online article by clicking here.

If you are an AOL member you can follow the discussion that appears on one of the AOL message boards by clicking here.

In January of 2009 it seems that AOL employees received an internal memo stating plans to cut 700 jobs.

Be Careful Of These Kinds Of Emails!

Dear AOL Member,

This confirms that your AOL payment method has been updated to reflect the new information you provided. You can make payment method changes at AOL throughout your monthly billing cycle if you decide that a different payment method would better suit your needs. Please note however, that the billing method on record at 10:00 AM EST on your billing cycle date will be the one used to process your account charges.

You can access America Online`s secure, self-service Billing Center by going to-->AOL Billing Center. Here you can review and modify your AOL account information online, anytime.

Please Remember: If your account information is not updated within 48 hours then your ability to use your AOL account will become restricted!
*********************************************************
For security reason all links in this message will be blocked within 48 hours *********************************************************
Sincerely,
Member Services
AOL, LLC.


Please be advised that this is NOT a legitimate email from AOL! For one thing the blue link provided DOES NOT go to a legitimate AOL site! It goes somewhere else!

If you're an AOL member and you ever get an email such as this DO NOT CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS PROVIDED!. If you have a doubt about the email then you should go directly to AOL's official site only!

The AOL Message Boards - Changes?

I saw a rumor that AOL might get rid of their message boards so I decided to find out more information about it. Here is what I found so far.

Dear Message Board users,

We wanted to tell you about some changes that are coming to your AOL Message board experience. Many of the most popular message boards are getting a new look and feel in the coming weeks, while a number of the less frequently used message boards are being retired. Be sure to check back at the People Connection Message Boards page for an up-to-date list of active message boards.

These changes will take place on March 31st, 2009.

Thank you for being part of the AOL Message Board community. We thank you for your patience and understanding, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

The AOL Message Board Team

source
People Connection Blog

So far this is part of the information that I have found. It seems that AOL may be closing their message boards outside the United States - ie like in the UK and a number of AOL users outside the United States have reported that they have seen messages posted by AOL stating that their message boards will be closing.

Phishing Or Spam?

Here is yet another email attempt to get your AOL log-in and password information:

Dear AOL Member,

It has come to our attention that your AOL Billing Information records are out of date. That requires you to update the Billing Information. Failure to update your records will result in account termination. Please update your records within 24 hours. Once you have updated your account records, your AOL session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Failure to update will result in cancellation of service, Terms of Service (TOS) violations or future billing problems. You must click the link below and enter your login information on the following page to confirm your Billing Information records..
Thank You

http://webmail.aol.com/

If you put your cursor over the blue link you would see that the link provided doesn't even go to an official AOL page!

You should be very careful when you get email like this. AOL says that it does not ask its users for their password information!

If you are worried that there may actually be something wrong with your AOL account - my suggestion is that you either call them on the phone or only log in via one of their official websites!