AOL is under fire again for an e-mail-related issue, this time for delivering ads with subscribers’ messages.
For the first time in its history, the Web portal has begun serving banner ads along with e-mail to its paid subscribers, PC World first reported last week.
Users of free e-mail services, such as Yahoo!’s are accustomed to seeing ads delivered with their messages and generally understand that the pitches pay for the service. Some of AOL’s paid subscribers, however, are up in arms over the change and are considering leaving the service.
An AOL spokeswoman reportedly said the company surveyed its subscribers and determined that receiving ads with e-mail wouldn’t be overly upsetting to them.
AOL can ill afford to anger its subscribers. Parent company Time Warner reported in its quarterly earnings statement that as of March 31, AOL’s U.S. subscriber base was 18.6 million, a loss of 835,000 from the previous quarter and a loss of 3.1 million from the previous year.
The news comes on the heels of a massive system failure on June 1 during which users could neither receive nor send e-mail for five hours.
It also follows months of controversy over AOL’s implementation of Goodmail’s Certified Email program, under which mailers can pay a small fee to have their e-mail guaranteed to be delivered with a symbol marking it as safe and with graphics and links intact.
AOL did not return a call for comment by deadline.
