I have found myself saying some strange things recently: I am extremely satisfied with BT; I have a profound respect for those talented enough to be employed at Redmond; and, finally, I quite like AOL. I wound up with AOL by chance: the CompuServe floppy disk installation failed and Demon were too expensive; AOL 3 installed on Windows 3.1 perfectly. Sadly, AOL is not what it was in its heyday here in the UK; then it was the cheapest dial-up provider with an extremely easy to use and intuitive e-mail client and the bonuses of Usenet feeds, chat rooms supervised by Community Leaders and so on. I used to install AOL on friends' machines almost as a matter of course. The e-mail front end is still usable if you set up Internet Explorer correctly:
IE Security -> Internet -> Custom Level ->
ActiveX: Disable ActiveX Controls
Scripting: Disable Active Scripting
That kills most of the horrible Flash annoyances (I pay 19.99 GBP pcm, do I have to watch the adverts as well, Charles?) and makes the e-mail client usable again. I also disable Pictures &c. in the Advanced IE menu.
AOL's spam filters are extremely effective although one curiosity (which I haven't seen lately) was receiving spam purportedly from one's own AOL e-mail address.
My understanding is that now anyone can set up and use an AOL e-mail address (as was the case with AIM), whether they are paying a sub or not. Whether the friend's Screen Name has been hijacked, is being spoofed or is simply a near identical clone (old Screen Names used to remain unavailable for a couple of years after deletion) is beyond my extremely limited knowledge. If there is an extant contract with AOL then I suppose it's up to the executors to intervene. If sufficient (and it's a fairly low number) AOL users report a Screen Name as generating spam (a simple button press) then the account is suspended.
I recently received a cold call from TalkTalk (I dialled 1471/*69 after the call terminated) claiming to be AOL and trying to sell me a new broadband package. To my knowledge TalkTalk are no longer part of the CPW group. When the caller asked me for my postcode I said "You tell me" and the line immediately went dead. You may draw your own inferences re data leaks.
IRN