AOL Has Decided I Don't Have Enough Robotic Friends

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the why-are-you-here? dept

AOL recognizes that a lot of people only touch the company’s services through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and has worked hard to try to squeeze money out of that usage in the way of increasingly intrusive ads. It looks like someone at AOL has figured that if they’re already bombarding you with ads around the IM window, why not put them directly in your buddy list? Like plenty of others, when I logged into AIM this morning, I was told that the company decided I was too lonely and added two AIM bots that I certainly didn’t request and really didn’t want in my buddy list. They put them up top, too, in case I missed them. To be just that much more insulting, they added a little “don’t worry, you can just delete them if you don’t want them.” Seems a bit like buddy list spam, actually. “You can just hit delete if you don’t want this spam.” Instant messaging bots are nothing new, of course. They’ve been around for years — and for years I’ve never really seen the point. Why would I suddenly want them in my buddy list if I’ve never requested them myself?