ChristiansUnite Forums

Well all over the current events thing we have tons of politics and fun stuff like that.  But I decided to put a little different bit of news on the wire.

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6519560444

The short of this link is that there was this woman who had a bad experience with AOL.  Her son had opened an account with AOL when he got a computer.  He was a minor at that time.  Well this lady was using this account for her email and things of that nature for both business and personal use.  She has been a user for several years, her son is no longer a minor.  And she has talked to AOL many times over the years.  But recently apparently they decided to stick to their policies and only the account holder can make changes on the accounts.  She was calling up to request that they stop billing her for a service that is now a free service.  And when they found out that the account was opened by a minor, even though he is not anymore, they advised her that they were going to terminate the account.

Well they did the very next day.  And she lost access to the account, e-mail, webspace, stored documents and things of that nature.  She does point out that Yahoo, AOL, and others have statements in their service agreements that state they can terminate service at any time for pretty much whatever reason.  And this is true for pretty much any service really.

Her basis for the arguement and proposal is the 1996 ruling concerning local phone number portability.  These orders recognize that a person or businesses local phone number is a critical component of thier public identity.  This portability allows you to move across town and keep your same phone number.  This is also what allows you to keep your cell phone number even if you switch providers.

She states that the same consumer considerations apply equally to e-mail address portability.  Siting that many individuals depend just as heavily upon their e-mail as they do their phone number. 

She also goes into the post office examples as well about how you can get your mail forwarded when you move from one location to another.

She says the solution is to force ISPs to forward e-mail traffic to a new e-mail address designated by customers.  She says that there is no technical reason at all why an e-mail sent to one address could not automatically be forwarded to the new email address.  She says that it would require none of the re-tooling which LNP (Local Number Portability) entailed and could be implemented almost immediately. 

Now let me address a couple of things here.  The woman put together this brief very well.  And deliberately left out certain things that would have sunk it right off.  And with that let me explain how email works and other aspects of the Internet as well.

This woman had signed up for an AOL account.  Actually her son did.  POint number 1.  Who lets their children sign up for anything in their name using their parents credit card information?!  Point 2.  Even if one does, does it not make sense to also have your name on the account...EVERYONE has policies that state only account holders can change account information.  Your phone company is like that, your utility company is like that, your credit card companies are like...and have been for years.  That is written in their policies to cover their own behind in case of fraud. 

Now the woman also stated that she ran her business from her son's AOL account.  What part of that does not smack of plain dumb?  What did she think she was going to do when her son grew up, got married, had kids, and was living in another part of the country?  Keep her son's old account going...up until her son wanted to sign up again in his new home and they told him that he could nto because he already had an account going....well DUH.

Let me also explain something.  If you sign up for an AOL account, or Hotmail, or anything else of that nature you are signing up for a username on their domain.  You see AOL pays for the domain of aol.com.  IT is their, they own it.  When you sign up they are simply allowing you to use a username on their domain. 

That brings up another aspect of things.  Domains.  These are the things like aol.com, christainsunite.com and all of the other stuff.  These are things that people buy, technically lease I guess.  You buy a domain and then you get with someone to host that domain.  You could even buy your own computers and such and have it hosted there.  The domain can cover web space, e-mail, and anything else that would need to go to yourdomain.com.  And if you are working with and ISP to host our domian you are able to move it to another ISP at any time.  IT is portable...and as long as YOU move all of your documents and things...the place where you registered your domian can move it to the new location.

And domains are cheap.  You can get one for like $10 a year.  If you are in business for yourself then it must mean you are really cheap to not get a domain setup.  You can even get a simple easy website up as well for next to nothing.  Email hosting and such is also very cheap.  So why this lady decided to put her business on an AOL domain account I have no idea. 

And her comments about how technically it is easy to forward email and things like that.  She is correct in some aspects.  It is easy to do a mail forward.  Matter of fact it is as easy as registering a domain...or moving a domain.  However it is not just a simple flip of the switch.  Sure AOL could put a mailforward  on yourname@aol.com.  That is easy.  However where it gets tougher is that while that is going on the mail is still going through AOL's mail servers.  Your mail is still cloging up AOL mail servers, spam filters, virus filters, etc.  The more mail you have the slower the servers go, and this can effect paying customers of AOL.  What if you have your mail forwarded to a spam clearing house or something and suddenly your address is getting 100,000 emails a day....does AOL have to honor the forwarding agreement?  In order to handle just your mail they may have to go out and buy another server...who would pay for that? 

The other technical aspect of this would be for how long and how to auto trigger the cut off.  Email servers currently do not do this sort of thing.  There is no calendar setup to say 6 months from the cut off time we close out the email account.  So now there would have to be another mechanism put into place to accomplish this.  So who would pay for that?  And if the FCC makes a ruling on it then every ISP will have to comply.  ANd suddenly the little guy is having to fork over more money from a business that is barely making it buy as it is.  There may not be a physical re-tool of the network, but there is a re-tooling that would have to go on in order to support this.

Keep in mind a couple of things as well.  She mentioned the LNP.  You do not get that unless you specifically ask for it.  The phone companies will give you a new number unless you request to move your number from one location to the other.  The post office will not forward your mail unless you request that they do so.  They are not going to magically know where you are going.  Also notice as far as the mail is concerned...someone paid to get the message to you.  And if you ask your ISP and are switching to another provide most of them will forward your mail for a period of time as well...you just have to ask...and as for her...maybe if she had had the account holder...her son ask then she could have too.

There we go...just something a little different.