When AIM Bots Attack

Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) America Online has made a few mistakes throughout its history. The first one that springs to mind was the company's big switch to all-you-can-eat pricing a few years back, resulting in busy signals galore. Well, here's another one that might go down in the annals of silly mistakes. AOL's Instant Messenger service recently decided that everybody needs new friends -- non-human friends, even -- whether they want them or not.

Last week, AIM users discovered a new folder labeled AIM Bots in their Buddy Lists, complete with two new "buddies," MovieFone and ShoppingBuddy. A bot is an automated program designed to answer questions asked of it. (For example, one could ask MovieFone for local movie showtimes.) The techie folks over at Slashdot had great fun conducting some rather ribald conversations with their bots, mostly making the point that the intrusion wasn't welcome.

Bots can be useful sometimes -- my Buddy List includes SmarterChild, a Q&A service that I hardly ever use, and a WSJ bot that automatically retrieves top business headlines for me a few times a day. (I should note that I added both to my list all by myself.)

The fact that these can be useful little programs -- and that AOL didn't make them difficult to remove -- isn't the point, of course. There's some outrage buzzing on the Internet simply because AOL didn't ask permission. AOL stated that the move was meant to heighten users' awareness that bots are available, and that the company is soliciting feedback about the addition of the bots.

Buzz across the Internet about AIM's "intrusiveness" is not surprising, especially considering recent invasive moves into customers' machines by companies like Sony (NYSE:SNE). Security problems have been high-profile for the last couple years, and some people aren't crazy about AIM because of previous occasions when it has pushed affiliates' programs into users' computers. Many users would readily compare that to "spyware."

Very few people want something they didn't ask for installed on their computers, even if that something is useful. AIM may be the leader in instant messaging, but it faces plenty of competition from Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). In their rush to "heighten awareness," AOL and other Internet companies need to remember that it's not a right to have their programs installed customers' machines -- it's a privilege.

You've got fellow Foolishness:

• AOL is changing the channel.
• America Online may be welcoming change .
• But what could be its next mistake?

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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.