As a condition of approving the AOL Time Warner merger, the Federal Trade Commission required AOL to open up its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) network to MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and other competitors, allowing users of the other networks to exchange text messages, files, and other data with AIM users.
AOL blithely announced this week that it has no plans to do so. It plans to blow off the FTC and continue to exclude the other services because of “changing market conditions and the technical difficulty of the undertaking.”
Y’know, even Microsoft pays lip service to the concept of obeying the rules. This is pretty brazen.
