According to this post on The Faster Times, AOL had writers writing short articles about TV shows for the AOL TV listings for the sole purpose of getting AOL subscribers to click through the listings.  AOL would then play an advertisement that they got paid for every time it played.

So what, you ask.

Read the title of this post again.

Basically, AOL is using you (their subscribers) to make money in a fraudulent way.  The actual listings weren't really about the show, so your click paid them and you were inconvenienced for a short time.

The execs at AOL were basically forcing these writers to make up reviews to get you to click.  They admitted it!

For years I have told my clients who use AOL to continue to do so if that's what they want.  Most of them like the format and they are used to it.  While I don't want to inconvenience my clients by asking them to change to a browser client (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, whatever) and an email client (Outlook, Windows Mail, Mail, Entourage), I am certainly going to tell them about this and give them the choice.

I hate being manipulated so that someone else makes money, and I will tell everyone I know about this.  However, sadly, after reading the comments made in Oliver's post, it seems like there are many companies doing this.


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