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AOL Has Decided I Don't Have Enough Robotic Friends
from the why-are-you-here? dept
AOL recognizes that a lot of people only touch the company's services through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and has worked hard to try to squeeze money out of that usage in the way of increasingly intrusive ads. It looks like someone at AOL has figured that if they're already bombarding you with ads around the IM window, why not put them directly in your buddy list? Like plenty of others, when I logged into AIM this morning, I was told that the company decided I was too lonely and added two AIM bots that I certainly didn't request and really didn't want in my buddy list. They put them up top, too, in case I missed them. To be just that much more insulting, they added a little "don't worry, you can just delete them if you don't want them." Seems a bit like buddy list spam, actually. "You can just hit delete if you don't want this spam." Instant messaging bots are nothing new, of course. They've been around for years -- and for years I've never really seen the point. Why would I suddenly want them in my buddy list if I've never requested them myself?
Reader Comments
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Premium-rate SMS services use bots
...is this what AOL is working towards?
"Regular users of pornographic SMS chat may be shocked to find out that they are swapping dirty talk with machines rather than young women and men.
But it's a fair bet that they are because the Natachata chatbot, written by former rocket scientist Simon Luttrell, is so widely used by porn chat merchants. At its busiest Natachata handles 15 messages per second. A typical "session" lasts about seven or eight messages and each SMS costs more than £1." More (BBC)
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No Subject Given
I use GAIM(on XP) and although I got the message about my new bot friends, they are not actually showing up in my buddy list.
I hope it stays that way.
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Re: No Subject Given
I dont see why people would use straight up AIM anymore...I'd think most people would switch to at least the AIM Ad Hack, or GAIM.
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Re: No Subject Given
or trillian
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AIM bots
I noticed them this morning as well. Totally annoying. At first I was going to delete both but decided to the movie one might come in handy so I kept it.
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No Subject Given
ok hahaha Glad it wasnt me. I just turned on my Comp and jumped on Aim and they were there. YAY I finally have 2 friends?
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powered down
I also have these two added, but, neither of them are responding to my repeated hello's, I feel lonely again...
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No Subject Given
Found the two bots in my Trillian contact list and freaked out until I asked my friend. Didn't get the message though, I think because I have AOL blocked.
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removed
just got a message from aim saying they removed the bots from my buddy list (5 minutes after i deleted them)
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AIM Bots
My privacy settings seem to have superceeded this.
I don't allow IMs from anyone NOT on already my contact list.
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Fun with bots
I had some fun with these bots, swearing at them, cussing them out. Yeah, I'm bored... But, at least was entertained for a moment before I deleted them
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Sooo-ny?
Next thing we'll know teh damn bots are loading root kits on our computers and sending all traffic to our bosses / significant others unless we agree to sell our souls to Bill Gates
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No Subject Given
so i have been logged into aim for about 3 days straight...this goes back to the idea of setting the world's longest up time for a PC. anyways. i had to reset, and when i did, AIM decided it was gonna put some crap on my computer. well when that happened, it all of a sudden gets really really slow. i couldn't pull up my task manager, so i had to use free ram XP pro to see what the new task was. all kinds of spyware was just loaded on my computer. when just 20 min. earlier i ran a scan and there was no instance of any. so i am gonna blame aol and time warner for this. they are gonna get it. u just wait and see. cable internet is gonna take over, and their dial up is kaput. and people are gonna get smart and figure out how much AOL does suck and use firefox.
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tracking clients?
what if the bots have the capability of reporting back to a central server the client in use, whether it is AIM, or Gaim, Miranda, Trillian, etc.?
Anyone thought of that??
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