There’s been a lot of talk EarthLink‘s new handling of dead domains lately. In this article, the author Sean Carton complaines that “In a bid to increase ad revenues, Earthlink hijacked the DNS system, which may cause problems for a whole slew of applications. ” He makes some good points about how this could affect FTP, e-mail, etc. read more »

I’m not sure that I have a strong opinion either way on the Net Neutrality debate. Susan’s article gives some facts and quotes that might sway some of you. I did learn one new word: “Luddite”

Net Neutrality Pits Google, eBay, and Amazon, Against Telcos

By Susan S. Davis

As telephone and digital companies continue to grow through mergers and acquisitions, network (”net”) neutrality, has become a contested area of law in the United States. Contoversial statements from Telco officials, as telephone networks appear to monopolize, has fueled the fire of independent Internet giants, such as Google, eBay, and Amazon, who fear that network owners will create a biased, two-tier Internet system, unfairly placing the telco services first, above all others. In addition, there is concern that network owners may seek to entirely censor or block content at their own discretion, thus creating an imbalance of partiality.

read more »

Some are saying that AOL’s PR Is Broken these days. Just when it seems things can’t get worse for AOL, it appears they have a mole leaking information to Consumerist.com. The Consumerist has been on AOL like a boxer pup on a meatloaf since the “cancel my account” snafu, digging up internal memos and employee manuals. The public relations nightmare continues.Add the revelations in those internal documents to a bevy of other incidents that includes consumer backlash, a renewed Eliot Spitzer investigation, Geronimo-ing subscribers, pottymouthed Netscape employees, worst-of-the-worst product reviews, and seeds of distrust sown during the Goodmail fiasco, and you have a company whose hot water has reached boiling. Soon after Vincent Ferrari went national with his recorded phone call to AOL, where he was badgered by a retention consultant ignoring Ferrari’s demand that his account be cancelled, the Member Services team was sent a flurry of memos and policy changes. According to the memos, EVP of Member Services, Scott Falconer called the aftermath of the incident “severe,” and employees were instructed to assume that any call could be recorded and posted on the Web. Falconer pleads with his staff to be extra helpful to all incoming callers. The Member Services crew also received an update instructing them that they were only to pitch the canceling member two offers before acquiescing if the member declines both. The new instructions to be nice to customers, even if they’re canceling, does not seem to apply to AOL-owned Netscape employees, especially if they’re dealing with a former customer who caused all this trouble to begin with.

Most folks think of BellSouth in terms of telecommunications or ISP services and that probably will not change anytime soon. read more »