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12.22.06
Eight Internet Losers In 2006
 By
Jason Lee Miller
Though the Internet had a breakout year 2006, it wasn't all birthday cakes and butterflies for everyone. Companies, institutions and philosophies came head to head every other day trying to exert some sort of control over it. And most of them failed miserably.
So while there were big time winners in 2006, every year has its colossal losers. This Biggest Internet Losers list rubs their faces in it because it has to be done. There are lessons to be learned.
Biggest Internet Losers 2006
1. AOL
2006 is a year that will live in infamy for one of the world's premiere ISPs. AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham couldn't have picked a tougher climate to press his company's causes. Their causes were paper-thin and they paid dearly for it.
Troubles hit AOL early after the company tried to sneak in a per-email fee for bulk mailers in the name of reducing spam. Tales of a mystery press release put AOL in the hot seat as the company denied any intention of eliminating its Enhanced Whitelist. It wasn't a press release, just a "thought piece" the entire American press thought was a press release. The Goodmail fiasco got AOL dragged into the California legislature to explain itself.
Shortly after that hubbub died down, Americans learned all about "The Call," where a dissatisfied AOL subscriber recorded his nearly fruitless effort to cancel his AOL account. It became quite clear that AOL's efforts to clot its hemorrhaging subscribers were borderline abusive, and Vincent Ferrari wasn't the only one (not by a long shot) that received this type of treatment.
And then, there was the AOL Data Valdez. Careers were tanked at the AOL campus when researchers published the entire search histories of AOL users, substituting names with numbers. That so-called "anonymized" list was quickly shown to be not so anonymous as patterns were so easily recognizable that actual users were tracked down by the press.
More layoffs, a complete restructuring, and a free AOL emerged. But Netscape went down in flames. Ay ay ay.
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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