AOL expected to scrap charges
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Investors in Time Warner Inc. ,  whose shares touched a two-year low in mid-July, are seeking  signs of a turnaround on August 2, when the world's largest  media company is set to introduce its fourth plan in five years  to save its online unit AOL.
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p2pnet.net News:- Time Warner executives must be wishing theyâd never heard of America Online. âThe Justice Department will file a criminal complaint that accuses AOL and PurchasePro.
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November 05, 2004 - A government investigation into accounting practices at America Online has prompted Time Warner to set aside $500 million to cover the costs of potential fines.
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America Online is adding a layer of security to its popular Internet service with the bundling of virus protection software from McAfee at no charge to customers. AOL (NYSE: AOL) claims it is the first ISP to offer premium antivirus coverage in the basic membership package.
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Time Warner has said that it set aside $500 million to pay for potential penalties from a government investigation into accounting practices at America Online, a step that led to a 7.8 percent decline in profit in the third quarter.
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Time Warner Inc.  on Wednesday  said its AOL unit will no longer charge high-speed Internet  users for e-mail and other Web services in a gambit to attract  more viewers and boost online advertising.
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Free insurance coverage for identity theft and computer damage is among the premium security offerings AOL is making available to its dwindling base of paying subscribers.
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DULLES, Va. -- The walls surrounding America Online Inc.'s well-manicured gardens are crumbling: AOL is abandoning its strategy of exclusivity and will free much of its music, sports, and other programming to nonsubscribers, in hopes of boosting ad sales.
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Media giant Time Warner will pay approximately $510 million to settle various fraud charges regarding its America Online (AOL) unit with two US regulatory agencies, the company revealed this morning.
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Time Warner plans to split up the Internet access and audience businesses of its AOL segment to run them each independently, Time Warner CEO and President Jeff Bewkes revealed Wednesday.The move comes as little surprise, as former CEO Dick Parsons acknowledged in September that Time Warner would at some point divest itself from the AOL access business, though he made no commitment to do so at the time.On Bewkes&#39; first quarterly financial conference call Wednesday since taking his position as CEO on Jan. 1, he said Time Warner&#39;s plans to split AOL&#39;s businesses will help hasten the segment&#39;s business-model transition from &quot;a declining ISP subscription business to a growing Internet ad business.&quot;&quot;This should significantly increase AOL&#39;s strategic options for each of these main business sectors,&quot; Bewkes said on a call to reveal Time Warner&#39;s fourth-quarter 2007 earnings. He made a distinction between AOL&#39;s for-fee Internet-access service and its ad-supported audience business, which includes AOL&#39;s online services and content.Bewkes did not give a specific timeline or other details for when and how the split will occur. AOL&#39;s Internet-access business, which still provides for-fee service, continues to decline in subscribers even as Bewkes noted that Time Warner has reduced operating expenses at AOL by &quot;well over a billion dollars.&quot;Still, even as AOL&#39;s goal is to become a viable online advertising competitor against Google, Yahoo and Microsoft -- the latter two of which may soon become a single and more formidable rival -- advertising revenue for AOL has been growing less than the industry average for several quarters.In the fourth quarter, ad revenue at AOL grew 18 percent, less than the current International Advertising Bureau&#39;s industry average of 25 percent. As a point of comparison, Google&#39;s ad revenue grew 51 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter.AOL&#39;s ad revenue growth was below industry average for both its 2007 second and third quarters as well. It grew 13 percent in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, and 16 percent in the second quarter, which ended June 30. The industry average was around 26 percent for those time periods.Time Warner&#39;s financial results for the quarter overall met Wall Street expectations, but net income was down for the quarter. The company reported $1.03 billion, or $0.28 a share, for the fourth quarter, down from $1.75 billion, or $0.44, last year. However, the results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 were bolstered by an income-tax benefit as well as income from the sale of AOL Internet access businesses in the U.K. and France.Quarterly revenue rose 2.4 percent, from $12.34 billion in the year-ago quarter to $12.64 billion, reported Wednesday.Bewkes on Wednesday also outlined other cost-cutting and strategic measures that Time Warner plans to take to make the business run more effectively. The company&#39;s AOL business is not the only one that will be affected; the company also is considering reducing its investments in its Time Warner Cable business, he said.(Juan Carlos Perez in Miami contributed to this report.)
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(InfoWorld) - Six men have been charged with orchestrating a phishing scheme that targeted AOL users, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday. The men are accused of harvesting thousands of AOL e-mail addresses and then infecting victims' PCs with malicious software that would prevent them from logging on to AOL without entering their credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and other personal information. Under the scam, victims would receive fake e-mail greeting cards that would silently infect their computers with the log-on software, according to a grand jury indictment. Victims were also spammed with phoney e-mail messages that claimed to have come from AOL's billing department. "Due to a central server meltdown, your credit card information was lost," one such e-mail read, according to the indictment. "In order to enjoy your AOL experience and keep your account active, you must enter your credit card information within 24 hours." Some of the fake greeting cards claimed to come from Web sites such as Hallmark.com or BlueMountain.com, the indictment states. AOL users appear to have been the primary targets of the fraud, but others may also have been targeted, according to Tom Carson, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's office for the District of Connecticut. "The investigation is ongoing," he said. "I think we can say the bulk of those targeted were AOL users, but we can't say with 100 percent certainty that they were the only victims," he said. The accused are believed to have defrauded thousands of individuals, U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said in a statement. "These are insidious crimes that wreak havoc on the lives of victims, and we will seek strict terms of imprisonment." The alleged scam was conducted over a two-year period, beginning in 2004, the U.S. Attorney said. Proceeds from the crime were used to purchase gaming consoles, laptop computers and gift cards, the indictment states. The men were actually indicted on fraud charges last week by a federal grand jury in New Haven, but the charges were not made public until Wednesday, when three of the men pleaded guilty. The three who have pleaded guilty face between two years and nine and a half years in prison, Carson said. They are Charlie Blount Jr., 22, of Branford, Connecticut, Richard D'Andrea, 22, of West Haven, Connecticut, and Thomas Taylor Jr., 20, also of West Haven. They are scheduled to be sentenced in mid-December. The three men awaiting arraignment are Michael Dolan, 22, of North Miami Beach, Florida, Keith Riedel, 20, of Winter Haven, Florida, and Daniel Mascia, 22, of West Haven. Dolan had previously been sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to accessing a protected computer without authorization.
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Steve Case, the founder of the AOL Internet service, is backing a new online payment company that promises to let users transfer funds for free and offer a credit card with sharply lower fees for merchants.
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America Online, the world&#39;s largest Internet service provider, plans to lay off more than 700 employees early next month, or 5 percent of its US work force, to cut costs and meet financial goals, a source close to the company said on
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America Online, the world&#39;s largest Internet service provider, is preparing to cut its workforce by more than 700 employees early next month to cut costs, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
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Time Warner Inc.'s  AOL reached  a settlement with 48 states and the District of Columbia under  which it will change its policy on account cancellations,  officials announced on Wednesday.
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AOL is being accused of using malware-like tactics to install software unbeknownst to users when they install AOL 9.0, the company's latest version of its online service software. The charge was made by industry coalition StopBadware.org.
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AOL's decision to stop charging broadband Internet users for access to its services confirmed that the money-making model for online search engines is rooted in advertising, analysts say.