quote:
Originally posted by tesco samoa:
AOL has every right to block Trillian. It is their network and to use the aol network you must agree to their EULA policy which states that you can only access their networks with their own software.
That is the "legal" arguement. The "ethical" arguement is that IM networks should be opened, like the phone networks or the Internet. You don't see AT&T saying that their customers can only call AT&T customers, or MCI only MCI, or Sprint only Sprint, or whatever other phone companies. One arguement used extensively has been a Microsoft analogy. Microsoft could easily (and legally) have only allowed Internet Explorer Users to access any of its websites, and it could have easily "persuaded" several other companies to do the same. AOL could have done the same thing after it aquired Netscape. Opera, NeoPlanet, and other browsers would be left in the cold. The thing is, none of that is really ethical. The browser analogies, IMHO, fit best. Websites are stored on a company's servers, using the company's bandwidth, space, resources in general; yet any (decent) web browser can access it. The same should apply for IM networks.
Also, the government told AOL/Time Warner to open up its IM networks as a part of the merger. AOL/Time Warner, unethically, made a loophole. The wording of the agreement basically went as so: "AOL/Time Warner agrees to open up its IM networks to connection with any other IM client that wishes to connect, after we implement a new protocol which we have told the government we will implement in a year." As soon as the merger was finalized, AOL/Time Warner announced that it will no longer be developing a new protocol, OSCAR is doing just fine. Certainly legal, and yet unethical for using the word of the law to get around the purpose of the law.
Yet another reason why AOL/Time Warner is being less than ethical is the fact that they are NOT preventing ALL IM clients not developed/licensed/supported by them from connecting. Those using the TOC protocol can still connect. However, the AIM networks have been tweaked to the point where TOC support is butchered, allowing only sending and recieving of Messages; no file transfer, no away message, no chat. I have no doubt that at some point, TOC will not be supported at all. Yet for now, some clients are allowed to connect, and some aren't.
So, legally, AOL/Time Warner does have every right to boot Trillian Users from its network. And in the pre-Civil War era, Southern farmers had every right to own slaves. And in the pre-Magna Carta era, British rulers had every right to refuse the public their voice. Just because something is legal, it doesn't mean that it is right.
Wow, that was a bit of a rant...