AOL Blocking All Links From LiveJournal

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the going-a-bit-overboard? dept

Not exactly sure what’s going on here (and it could just be an honest mistake), but apparently, AOL is now blocking all links to AOL from LiveJournal, the popular blog hosting site. In other words, if AOL can tell you’re coming from LiveJournal, it will look as though the AOL site in question doesn’t exist. Of course, the rumors are flying as to why they’re doing this. The innocent theory is that it’s just a mistake on AOL’s part. It’s possible they wanted to stop people hosting pictures on their AOL accounts and having them show up on LiveJournal, but just went overboard. The more sinister theory (which would certainly need a lot more proof before it could be believed) is that this is part of their blogging marketing strategy. AOL, of course, just launched their own, competing blogging offering, so some are suggesting less-than-friendly reasons for AOL blocking all links from LiveJournal. I think that’s a pretty far-fetched theory (though, the timing is odd). If AOL is actively blocking LiveJournal links for that reason, it would be a clear overstepping of their bounds, and would be just one more reason for folks to avoid AOL altogether.