Did anyone else arrive at their PC today to find new email on their AOL account? Did you realize that you even had an AOL account?
I’ve been an AOL Instant Messenger user for a long time now. I’ve been using Trillian as my go-to Instant Messaging application for even longer. I think I knew that Trillian would check email, but I didn’t realize that AOL was going to be giving about email accounts ala GMail.
It turns out that the AIM email is offering me 2GB of email storage. Of my Gmail account, I’m using 5MB of 2687MB. My Gmail account is bigger, but it’s not really something I’m worried about at the moment. Or probably ever. Selling me on storage size is pretty pointless. I fully expect something better to come along before I fill up 2GB of email storage at either of these services.
Plus, the only reason I have an AIM account is for IM. I wouldn’t even suggest using it for email. My “screen name” (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean) isn’t exactly friendly to type. I even have to work to remember it. The only people who send me IMs on AIM are people who already have me in their contact list by means of me contacting them first.
I irrationally refuse to use a number in any login name I use.
Anyway, it was kind of a shock to find out that I had email waiting for me in an account that I didn’t even know I had. It seems apparent that this is a new AOL feature, and I don’t know how I feel about having new features tacked onto a free account that I use for something else. I’m sure there is a privacy or security violation somewhere in there.
A little paranoia in the morning never hurt anyone.
