AOL Trash Talks Cancer Patients Over Opposition to Email Tax

by Matt Stoller, Mon Feb 27, 2006 at 06:39:52 PM EST

So after writing that last post on AOL's proposed email tax, I reread the article and noticed AOL's dripping derision for the various groups concerned about what this might mean:

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham: "There is no substantive news here, just because some disparate groups of advocates have come together for an event reminiscent of the bar scene in the first 'Star Wars' movie."

Gilles Frydman of the Association of Cancer Online Resources said bulk e-mail charges will cause problems for organizations like his.

"We cannot pay for the service, we don't have the money," Frydman said.

And it's not just a money thing.
"In essence, this is going to block every AOL subscriber suffering from any form of cancer from receiving potentially life-saving information they may not be able to get from any other source, simply because a non-profit like ACOR – which serves more than 55,000 cancer patients and caregivers every day – cannot afford to pay the fee. There must be a better solution," says Gilles Frydman, ACOR's President.

So AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham (phone number: 703-265-1746) trash talks cancer patients in pursuit of a scheme to ruin the level playing field of the internet. Its like a parody of evil, except it's real.

Sign up to stop this nonsense and wake up the saner heads at AOL by signing this open letter which launches Tuesday at 1pm.

Tags: AOL, MoveOn, net neutrality (all tags)

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11 Comments

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Re: AOL Trash Talks Cancer Patients Over Oppositio

uhhhh.... are we sure this isn't a big pile of nothing?

according to NYT:

AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam

looks to me like it's more of a "pay to get on the fast-track" rather than a "tax".

i don't see the problem.

by heterodox 2006-02-28 12:52AM | 0 recs
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slow news day....

by aiko 2006-02-28 04:06AM | 0 recs
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exactly

This really is just Stoller and a few other people getting worked up over nothing.  There is ZERO effect on the cancer emails or anything MoveOn sends.

by hotshotxi 2006-02-28 11:09AM | 0 recs
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Re: exactly

No, actually it's not me.  This effort is being led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a widely respected nonpartisan group.  

by Matt Stoller 2006-02-28 04:43PM | 0 recs
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Anyone who uses AOL needs slapped

There isn't anywhere in the U.S. where AOL is even the cheapest or best service available anyhow.

AOL's software is practically a virus/spyware app unto itself.

To be honest, folks really shouldn't be using AOL in the first place.

by jcjcjc 2006-02-28 03:10AM | 0 recs
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Re: Anyone who uses AOL needs slapped

There isn't anywhere in the U.S. where AOL is even the cheapest or best service available anyhow.

AOL's software is practically a virus/spyware app unto itself.

To be honest, folks really shouldn't be using AOL in the first place.

well that part is absolutely true.

in fact, i'm pretty sure that anything aside from the actual dial-up access are things you can find for free elsewhere.

by heterodox 2006-02-28 09:17AM | 0 recs
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Actually

In many metros in the US there are free dial-up access numbers.

And, of course, you have cities building public wireless systems right now.

So . . . it is something else what is out there.  It's just a matter of informing the public so they can make a better decision than AOL.

by jcjcjc 2006-03-01 03:34AM | 0 recs
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Re: AOL Trash Talks Cancer Patients Over Oppositio

Let them dump AOL and get a real internet provider...for less money!

This "tax" is a disaster, but for AOL, not the internet.

by antiHyde 2006-02-28 04:14AM | 0 recs
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Re: AOL Trash Talks Cancer Patients Over Oppositio

You know, some fuckwit once use the fucking "Star Wars cantina" crack about Dean meetups. I fucking hate that because it dissed two things I loved!

Now, it only makes me angrier.

by DavidNYC 2006-02-28 07:10AM | 0 recs
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Re: AOL Trash Talks

AOL charges $24.95 for their email service; I would think that threatening to cancel your subscription to them would be a motivator; and fewer subscribers would lessen their ability to charge money to senders for their services.

That is the letter I am going to write.

by debcoop 2006-02-28 09:23AM | 0 recs
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Re:AOL Trash Talks Cancer Patients(Threatens free)

This goes far beyond AOL for those who believe leaving AOL will solve this.  

Once one single company as large as AOL successfully charges for e-mail it will begin at other large companies and then trickle down to the smaller ones.  It is a way to make money and business is about making money.

Think of this as a AOL fee on e-mails as a test to see if it will be successful.  Just like the courts one single win in a particular direction sets precedent as it will here.

Going unchecked it will not be too uncommon in the future to have a number of e-mails like toll calls you can make during a given month depending on your paid for plan. This in a nutshell effects every single person that uses and enjoys free communication in this manner and even as time goes on far beyond that.  

Imagine fees on Blogging.

lata,
C

by clarity 2006-03-09 01:19PM | 0 recs

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