AOL Email Footer Lawsuit: Fairchild v. AOL, Cecchini v. AOL.

The History thus far:

On March  2006, AOL placed advertisements in the footers of all AOL member emails. Since then it sparked a petition gaining  900 signatures against the idea.

In May 2008, AOL notified a limited number of subscribers by allowing the option to remove the advertising footers at AOL Keyword (http://footer.aol.com). It is amazing even to this day, I was never notified of this keyword.

Around October 2008, AOL was hit by a lawsuit. The case, Cecchini v. AOL LLC, stated, “AOL attached advertisements to over 100 million emails without the subscribers’ permission.”

Frank Cecchini believes, an AOL customer paying $25.90 a month should not see any form of advertisements placed within their email. I pretty much agree, it is  understandable to place advertisements inside free email accounts, but I don’t think it is fair to paying AOL customers. I feel paying customers shouldn’t see advertisements on AOL websites, but I digress.

Proposed Settlement

An email from a related case, Fairchild v. AOL was released this week. Fairchild et. al v. AOL started around May 2009, and has since been placed within Cecchini v. AOL. It appears since August 24th, 2009, the lawsuit has moved to the proposed settlement phase. Here the courts will decide if AOL should pay over $250,000 for legal costs and fees, in addition to $103,000 it must pay to charity, among other things.

AOL’s Proposed Requirements

According to the email, AOL is required to notify it’s members about AOL Keyword Footer (http://footer.aol.com). They must also inform current and new members (upon registering for an AOL account) the option to remove the advertisements. This notification will continue every six months for two years.

User Response

Well I must admit, there isn’t much buzz about this subject but people have been forwarding this email around. I’ll wait until a few more days to get a response. So far I see it has been pretty negative. I think paying AOL members are bummed that they won’t get any share of the money.  I think sending a portion of the money to charity is a nice touch, but it would be nice to get something back… (or does this make me sound greedy?)

[via joemanna and court house news and Cecchini and Bronster]

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