AOL Adding Ads to Subscribers’ Email

June 7, 2006 By Geoff Duncan

In a move to increase its appeal to advertisers, AOL is displaying ads along with email messages to paying customers using AOL 9 software.

The Internet game seems to be all about the pursuit of online advertising dollars these days, and venerable online service AOL has made a major move to increase the number of ads it delivers on behalf of advertisers: beginning in May, AOL began inserting banner ads into email messages received by its paying customers.

It’s not unusual for free Web-based email services (GMail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc.) to support their services through advertising embedded in email messages to its users (although the business model was controversial “back in the day”). If users don’t want to receive the advertisements, they can generally opt out by converting from free service to paid plans.

AOL’s move is one of the first major providers to embed advertising in messages to paying subscribers. Banner advertisements are being displayed to subscribers using version 9.0 of AOL’s proprietary access software (currently available for Windows). According to AOL, the contents of the advertisements are not being based upon content of subscribers’ email messages (unlike Google’s GMail, which in a creepy Big Brother-like fashion selects ads based in part on the contents of users email messages). However, there’s no way for users to disable the inline advertising. According to AOL, they surveyed subscribers before implementing the change, and found that most wouldn’t mind banner ads in their email messages.

(Which might say something about AOL subscribers.)

Over the last year AOL has increasingly been trying to convert itself to a Web portal site accessible by the entire Internet user community, rather than a so-called “walled garden” whose users are tied into the AOL service by proprietary access software. The inline email advertising affects only AOL users inside AOL’s service: the fact the news took weeks to sneak out of AOL’s insular service may be an indication of how few users are still locked into AOL’s traditional offerings

Showing 12 comments

Bridget Kelley-Dearing at 7:24pm 24th March 2008 Like others here, I too have been with AOL for years (approximately 10 years) and I HATE their banner ads. I don't recall ever being surveyed on the topic, either. The banner ads lock up my system and I either have to exit AOL altogether or click on the banner ad and exit it in order to read email. I concur that there is absolutely no information on AOL as to who to contact to complain about the issue. (Lately, their HELP keyword leads mostly to error pages: URL not located on this server!!!) I, too, am going to finally leave AOL. I was only keeping it because of my email address being tied to many genealogy sites. Oh well.. I will finally have to start over with it. Good Riddance AOL.
Roberta at 11:20pm 21st March 2008 we should organize a boycott online and threaten to quit AOL if they don't get rid of the ads on email. As paying customers, we should not have these ads to deal with. In my case, I have to wait for the ads to load before I can open any email, or everything goes slower or freezes until the ads appear.
Larry Pate at 11:38am 13th July 2007 I am so mad at AOL that I could spit nails! They enticed me with a DSL option with the idea that I would pay only $5.00 more for DSL and the subscription to AOL would be free. THEY DID NOT tell me about pumping banner ads at me! Even when I am on wireless or on high speed cable, they pump animated banner ads at me so fast that I cannot open email downloads from people sending me files! That is with broadband!

It is INFURIATING!!!! It locks up my entire emails system! I minimize all windows with banner ads and never look at them. IT DOES NOT HELP! Sometimes it will lock up my email for minutes at time while successive banner ads load. With broadband, no less!

Do the idiots at AOL understand what they have done? I have been with AOL for about 12 years! They are about to lose me forever! I HATE THEM FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE! HELL WILL FREEZE OVER BEFORE I EVER RESPOND TO A BANNER AD ON AOL EMAIL. THEY HAVE INVADED PRIVATE SPACE. ADVERTISERS, DO YOU GET THIS?!!!~!!
Paul H. at 3:15pm 6th July 2007 If you are thinking of switching to AT&T Yahoo DSL service to escape the banner ads, DON'T !!! Three weeks ago, AT&T Yahoo DSL started putting banner advertisements in my email and it's bugging the crap out of me. I have complained by email and threatened to switch to a new service, but the ad's keep coming. I guess it's time to find a new provider, any suggestions?
Cathy at 11:13pm 26th June 2006 AOL is lying about surveying their customers. I have yet to hear of anyone who was surveyed, and there isn't anyone who would ever opt for these obnoxious memory eating ads. I've been a member for 11 years, and I will be canceling if these ads are not gone very soon.
B. Scholz at 2:17pm 26th June 2006 Like others here, I am a long-time AOL subscriber that HATES the email ads and I don't recall ever being surveyed on the topic, either. I suspect the AOL "survey" took place around a Time-Warner conference table. To make matters worse, there's absolutely no information on AOL as to who to contact to complain about the issue. (Lately, their HELP keyword leads mostly to error pages: URL not located on this server!!!) I, too, am about to leave AOL's walled garden. Didn't they read the recent BusinessWeek article about customer satisfaction?
H. Lucas at 10:24pm 14th June 2006 Their ads drive me nutz. It bothers my mind when trying to read some important mailings. Also with the lists I'm on, it requires animation usuage and seeing movement on all areas of the email is retarded. The bottom ad animation crap is unwanted. They used to ask for spam to be sent to 'em to fight off the crap. Now they do, but in turn, simply post back and return it to us. If there was another server that could handle what I use, I'd change in a heartbeat. AOL is going down the drain, with their own garbage.
Dee at 8:21am 14th June 2006 When did AOL do the survey that we took that says we WANTED these ads????
Linda McCarty at 7:16am 14th June 2006 I too have been with AOL for well over 11 years. I like some of their services, however the latest crap with the ads on emails is a bit much. I pay a monthly fee and shouldn't have to put up with this garbage. My software is already screwed up as I can't click on links and go to the site its suppose to take me to. I too know that their techs know nothing about what they are doing as I was on the phone with them for 3 hours one night, and went through 5 people. Finally the last person, apparently a supervisor, or someone that actually had education in computer information systems, fixed my problem. How much more do they want? We already pay a fee, now we have to see these stupid ads everytime we open an email. GEEZZZZ I can see doing this to the AIM people that just want a free service but to paying customers, its a bit much.
Bill at 3:10pm 13th June 2006 I sure as hell don't like it and I have been with AOL over fourteen years. I also don't remember ever getting a survey like they said so who are they lying to? I have had nothing but problems with AOL email with them blocking web site urls or links in email that they don't agree with. I also have a web site that has member and I fought them for two months because just the mention of the url without a link was being blocked. They tried to blame it on Comcast, Yahoo and MSN but after doing some research the techs at AOL postmaster had to admit it and clear up the problem. Half of the techs there don't know what the hell they are doing. That is the problem with farming out help. America online is not America online anymore.
Tim Stevens at 1:44pm 7th June 2006 That sounds like a great way to piss off your paying customers. Gotta love it when people at a company think ideas this dumb are great ideas. I wonder how that conversation went....
"I have this great idea... You know those people that pay us money to get email? Why dont we show them ADS so we can make our advertisers happy since our advertisers are more important than our users."
Frank J. at 10:53am 7th June 2006 What a shame, if the ads get really bad, I will stop using them all together. They are not trying to appeal to advertisers, they are trying to appeal to shareholders and their bottom line.