“A group of America Online’s instant messaging rivals today
accused the Internet giant of using inflated security and privacy
concerns to stall progress on technology standards that would allow
its services to work with those of competitors. The charges
challenge recent actions and statements by AOL aimed at easing
concerns that it intends to use its massive lead in the instant
messaging market to indefinitely lock out rivals. AOL has said
it is not opposed to interoperability in principle, but it will not
open its network without reasonable security guarantees.”
“Those concerns are a smoke screen, critics alleged today in a
white paper signed by 17 companies eager to cut AOL’s competitive
advantage, including Microsoft, Excite@Home, Qualcomm and
CMGI-owned companies iCast, Tribal Voice, MyWay.com and
Yesmail.com. “This document clearly articulates the fact that AOL’s
real objective is to stall interoperability,” Margaret Heffernan,
chief executive of iCast, said in a statement.”
“Today’s document was issued in response to AOL’s June proposal
for interoperability between AIM and its competitors, which was
made to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet
standards body. The white paper also responded to comments recently
filed by AOL to the Federal Communications Commission.”