[Atrocities]

No the reason for them claiming ownership is simply to use the information in the IM's to promote adverstising as well as to spy on their clients and perhaps blackmail them.

Companies for years have laid claim to IM, Email, and other forums of written communications as THIER property. My former employer stated that they owned all emails, phone messages, calls, and so on.

The funny thing is, a person, with an exceptional lawyer, could sue the hell out of AOL if some sick bastard made a date with their kid and then met up with them and an assualt or worse occured. HELL if they own the message then they assume full responsiblity for the content and INTENT of the message. Sue the AOL greedy bastards to hell and then sue again Ike just hurt the greedy bastards.