Tom Regan
AOL's flimsy 'Marketing Preferences'
|
The huge online service wants to start sending you lots of marketing come-ons -- even if you've told AOL in the past that you're not interested in receiving such 'information.' Seems that AOL sent out a mass mailing last week to a number of its users telling them that their 'marketing preferences' are due to expire in December. This may come as a bit of a surprise to people who believed that once they told AOL 'don't send us that junk,' they wouldn't have to tell them again.
But AOL says that it instituted the policy of marketing preferences expiring each year when it instituted its Terms of Service agreement 18 months ago. (As a long time AOL user, can I say that this comes as a complete surprise to me -- I don't remember receiving anything in the past year that explained this policy. And even if AOL did send it out when it changed the agreement 18 months ago, it must have done so very quietly.)
Here's what the AOL 'Marketing Preferences' area actually says, if you select the 'don't send any info' option:
"You may continue to receive some offers while we process your request. Your preference will apply for one year from the date AOL receives it. Near the end of this period, AOL will send an e-mail or pop-up screen to current members indicating that the preference is about to expire. If, at that time, you decide you DO wish to receive special mail offers, simply do nothing. If you decide that you do not want to receive these offers, you may return to this area to renew your preference."
This is know as 'opt-out marketing,' and it's a very controversial practice. For instance, imagine if your cable TV company sent you a letter telling you that you were going to start receiving new channels next month unless you called them and cancelled this service. Organizations that use this method claim that it's not illegal, which it isn't (in the US anyway -- it is illegal is some Canadian provinces, for instance), but it's a method that counts on a certain number of people not reading or seeing these letters 'informing' them of these choices.
Services should be something that you order, not that you decline. And once you decline it, it shouldn't be something that you have to decline again and again.
If you're an AOL user, and you want to make sure that you won't start to receive offers from AOL via e-mail, snail mail or phone, type in keyword "Marketing Preferences" and turn it all off. You'll just have to get use to doing it every year.
AOL and Microsoft kiss and make up
Just to show that there are no hard feelings after trashing Microsoft's attempt to invade its Instant Messenging software, AOL and Microsoft announced Monday that they had reached an agreement to use MS's DirectX multimedia API (application programming interface) components. This will allow AOL Windows users to run games designed to work on the DirectX code.
For all the mud they occasionally sling at each other, the truth is that AOL and Microsoft need to work with each other more than they need to destroy each other. Everything else is just PR and jockeying for better stock market value.
More is More
In a tip of the hat to the idea that 'more is more' -- or at least they hope so -- several start-up Internet companies, some that have yet to generate a penny in revenue, are considering spending at least $2 million to advertise during the Super Bowl, hoping that the one-time exposure to the huge TV audience will score a (if you'll pardon the obvious pun) touchdown and make them household names. A 30-second ad during the game will cost at least $2 million, up from $1.6 million last year. Almost ten dot.com companies will advertise during the game.
A few more companies and maybe they can band together and start running a 'dot.com Bowl' during the Super Bowl.
How fast is fast?
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced Monday that it will start marketing a new 750 megahertz chip to power computers, retaking the 'speed' crowd from Intel, whose chip runs at a leisurely 733 megahertz. Compaq and IBM will support the new chip.
But it has to be said that believing microchip speeds is a bit like believing radio ratings -- who's number one depends on how you read the statistics and which category you're taking about. For instance, Apple says it's new 500 Megahertz chip is faster than the 733 megahertz chip -- if you're doing graphics. But if you're doing calculations for other programs, the 733 megahertz chip leaves the Apple chip in its dust.
So really, who cares who is the 'fastest.' The point is that you'll still going to wait a long time for a download from the Net if you're using a 56K modem.