UsersSueAOL

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 02, 2000

Answers

Users Sue AOL Over New 5.0 Software
Some Found Access To ISPs Hindered
By Brooke A. Masters, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 2, 2000; Page E01

When Kenneth Yates's home computer refused to access his Erols Internet account last fall, he blamed his 11-year-old son for messing it up. Then Yates heard that a glitch in the family's new America Online software might really be to blame.

So Yates teamed up with another AOL customer and filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the latest version of the company's

software--version 5.0--constitutes a deceptive trade practice and violates consumer-protection and computer-tampering laws. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Alexandria, seeks damages of up to $1,000 for each of the 8 million people who installed the software.

The central problem, lead plaintiff Farhad Khazai of Gaithersburg contends, occurs when users install version 5.0 or upgrade from an earlier version. When Khazai agreed to make version 5.0 his default Internet provider, Yates says, the installing software changed his settings so that he could no longer just click on another provider's desktop icon to access a different account.

"AOL is making people use the Net the way they want it to be used. The Internet is supposed to be like free speech, with open access," said Yates, a Gaithersburg lawyer who specializes in Internet law. He said he has teamed up with a Birmingham-based firm, Gathings, Kennedy and Associates, which has experience with large-scale class-action suits.

AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato said the company could not comment on the specific allegations of the lawsuit, but he said that technical complaints to AOL have dropped 20 percent since the switch to 5.0.

Creating default settings on a customer's desktop that conform to specific companies' software "is a common practice in the industry" that makes the Internet connection more stable, D'Amato said.

The potential class is large--8 million AOL users have installed version 5.0, and thousands of them have other Internet accounts. In addition, beta testers of the software earlier told The Post that they complained to AOL about the glitch months before the company created the millions of 5.0 CD-ROMs in circulation.

The lawsuit acknowledges that the damage to each consumer was not especially large, making it impractical for customers to sue individually. Many were able to reconnect with their other accounts after calling their other Internet service provider. And the installing software specifically asks whether the user wants 5.0 as a default, rather than assuming that is what the user wants--another potential defense.

Several lawyers suggested that the other Internet service providers--which had to spend time and money helping their frazzled customers--may have more significant damage claims, but they are not included in the lawsuit.

AOL has settled class-action suits before: It paid off some shareholders who complained about a controversial accounting practice, and it also gave refunds to 128,000 customers who had trouble accessing the service after the company switched to a flat-fee monthly plan.

"One of the key risks for a consumer products company like AOL is the cost to its reputation," said Keith Shugarman, a D.C. lawyer who has been involved in large-scale civil litigation.

) Copyright 2000 The Washington Post C

-- aohell (aohell@flames.sulpher), February 02, 2000.

A while back in the computer press I read that Netscape users who installed the initial release of MSIE found that Netscape was disabled thereafter. This irritated a lot of people. Microsoft said, Gosh, how'd that happen? and later releases didn't do that any more.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 02, 2000.

Does AOL 5.0 accept a hot link from a non-AOL provider? Older versions do not. I send my daughter a URL and it comes thru cold. She has to copy and paste the dang thing to open it; not the world's biggest problem but the kind of CS that gives AOL a bad name.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), February 02, 2000.

Why is he on AOL in the first place?

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 03, 2000.

A,

Most people who do a lot of international travel or work out of the country use AOL, ie State Dept., Military, etc. AOL is available in many countries where other services are not available.

Lars, I uninstalled 5.0 after having problems with it, so I'm back to 4.0. But, when I send a hot link to somebody who doesn't have AOL, they end up doing a copy paste, like you said.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 03, 2000.

Dee,

I do not have AOL. I can not send a hotlink to someone who does have AOL. Sometimes people who have AOL can send one to me; sometimes not. Once I received a link that was bright blue for half its length and dead for the other half.

Consistent with the conspiratorial bias of this forum, I believe problem is intentionally caused by TPTB at AOL in order to restrict access to their lil universe.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), February 03, 2000.