Users Debate AOL 5.0

Many users say Internet software lawsuits against AOL have no merit.

James Niccolai, IDG News Service

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AOL late last week was hit with yet another class-action lawsuit over alleged problems with its AOL 5.0 Internet software. The latest lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges that AOL violated federal laws by releasing a version of AOL 5.0 that, without sufficient warning, made changes to customers' computer settings that made it hard for them to connect to a competing Internet service provider.

Friday's action follows a spate of similar lawsuits filed in several states in recent weeks, all of which make similar claims about AOL's software.

AOL has denied that its software makes it hard for consumers to connect with competing ISPs. Any changes made to the software, which was released last October, were designed to make connecting to the Web a "more seamless experience," an AOL spokesperson said recently.

Hassle Free?

A handful of customers who installed AOL 5.0 stood by the company.

"I'm not sure who is having problems with AOL 5.0, but it has not been me," says Chris Brossette, an AOL user in Jackson, Mississippi. Brossette wrote in an e-mail message that he installed the software on three PCs--one at work and two at home. The two home systems connect to the Internet using ISP EarthLink Networks' dial-up service.

"I have not had any troubles with getting my other ISP software to work properly," Brossette says. "The problem with most of the users is their lack of knowledge in installing software and not understanding the questions that are being asked" during the installation process, he adds.

"I installed AOL 5.0 in [October 1999] and was able to install and connect to MindSpring in [December 1999], so I would have to say that the lawsuits were without merit," agrees John Cooper, a former AOL user in Delaware. Cooper adds that he recently switched from AOL to MindSpring Enterprises because, he says, AOL doesn't support home users who use Windows NT, and because he found AOL's service "unreliable."

Full of Frustration

Another user was less impressed with AOL 5.0, and says she would like to join one of the class-action suits against the company.

"Once I loaded MindSpring onto my computer, I went through two days of frustration trying to get to the MindSpring account because the AOL [software] kept changing my new settings back to AOL server settings," reports Web user Mathea L. Doyle.

Doyle had to delete the AOL program from her PC entirely before she could connect smoothly to MindSpring, she says.

Ideally, software products should require users to confirm that they understand how a program might affect other programs on their PC before they go ahead and install it, according to Ed Woodsome, a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Howrey Simon Arnold & White.

"It's not entirely clear that users of AOL 5.0 weren't provided with such an explanation, but in today's litigious environment, lawyers are going to sue now and ask questions later," Woodsome says in a statement regarding the lawsuit.

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