Re: Found the source of various AIM problems

I have carefully reviewed the new AIM TOS with respect to users of 
third party clients.  It is available on line at: 
http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp

While I am not a lawyer, I find nothing in the TOS which jeopardizes 
end users of Fire, or makes them violate the TOS merely because they 
use Fire.

The portion of the TOS covering developers of third party clients 
includes the following wording (which does not apply to end-users):

"...You may not translate, reverse-engineer or reverse-compile or 
decompile, disassemble, make derivative works from, or otherwise 
attempt to discover any source code in the Software.  You may not 
obtain the communications protocol for accessing the AIM service, the 
AIM Products, or any other AOL services. Finally, you may not authorize 
or assist any third party to do any of the things described in this 
paragraph...."

Another section of their TOS specifically covers and allows users of 
Third-Party Services such as Fire:

"Third-Party Services
  Third parties may offer from time to time applications or services to 
access AIM services and AIM Products. Your use of such third-party 
applications will be at your own risk and subject to the terms and 
conditions of those third-parties. AOL does not represent and warrant 
that access and use of AIM Products through these third-party 
applications will be compatible, uninterrupted, error free, without 
defects or that you will be able to access the AIM Products at all 
times and locations of your choosing. You also agree that AOL is under 
no obligation to provide you with any error corrections, updates, 
upgrade, fixes and/or enhancements to make AIM Products accessible 
through these third-party applications."

Hope this helps put your fears to rest.

Alan
------
Alan Humpherys
Fire Development Team
http://fire.sf.net 

On Feb 10, 2004, at 9:47 AM, Emi Melissa Briet wrote:

> There's another issue with AIM as well, but I dunno if it's manifested 
> much yet.
>
> AOL recently changed their AIM TOS to say that you agree not to use 
> any third-party clients, and use of such is grounds for username 
> removal.  So the client has to make sure it self-identifies as the 
> regular AIM client....dunno if anyone else has run into this yet.
>
> --Emi



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