Is AOL Losing the Fight Against Spam?

The Target of Choice

Spam is a fact of life for anyone who has an e-mail address, but AOL users are particularly vulnerable to attack, according to leaders in the fight against junk e-mail.

AOL's content and community make it "a very different sort of system than most ISPs," according to Ray Everett-Church, an attorney for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (CAUCE) and formerly a consultant to AOL's antispam group. Unlike other ISPs, which primarily serve as a gateway to Web-based content and services, AOL is the final destination for many of its subscribers.

And as Ashley's experience indicates, everyone from porn-site operators to get-rich-quick schemers is taking advantage of that community. "AOL is the target of choice [for spammers]," says Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters, a Greenbrook, New Jersey, developer of online privacy tools. Harvesting e-mail addresses on AOL is as simple as calling up the member directory or writing a program that captures screen names as they appear in chat rooms or on message boards. With minimal time and effort, a junk mailer can compile those addresses into a database for spamming or for selling to other junk e-mailers.

AOL recognizes its vulnerability--as well as its role as a family-oriented service--and provides members with tools (including an array of mail controls) for customizing their online experience.

Parents of young children would be well advised to take full advantage of these controls. Thus my 7-year-old, for example, can receive e-mail only from a short list of friends and relatives. But when it comes to teens, exercising the same level of control is harder, since teenagers want and deserve more freedom than younger kids. Currently, though, parents and teens seem to have only two options on AOL: Block e-mail from all but a specified list of addresses, or deal with a barrage of spam.

The bottom line, acknowledges AOL spokesperson Rich D'Amato, is that anyone who frequents chat rooms and message boards is going to receive spam. As a work-around for this problem, D'Amato suggests that families dedicate one screen name for chatting and posting items on message boards, and then set the mail control for that name to refuse all e-mail. "It's a simple way for people to participate in AOL communities without worrying about spammers," he says.