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To: IceShark who wrote (82574)	1/6/2000 9:31:00 AM
From: clochard	Respond to of 86076

I use AOL here in Britain because they cost less, but its expensive anyway you go. They are fairly reliable and have competent support. An advantage with AOL is that they are worldwide.

To: IceShark who wrote (82574)	1/6/2000 10:24:00 AM
From: eddie r gammon	Respond to of 86076

<<<I got the distinct feeling that AOL just loaded my 'puter which a bunch of hidden crap for their own evil purposes to keep track of and snoop on me. -ng- And for some reason they wouldn't let me have the US encryption version.>>> You got that s**t right. It took me a month to kill all that AOL crap that kept popping up. I did not however have any trouble loading 132 bit encryrtion erg

To: IceShark who wrote (82574)	1/6/2000 10:41:00 AM
From: Ken98	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86076

Ice, I noticed the same thing with A0L. Most people don't realize the degree to which they are being watched by marketers while they are on the web. Certainly the recent disclosure about realnetwork is further evidence of this. A few weeks ago Forbes magazine had a very good cover article on this called something like "we know what you did last night" that spells a lot of this out. I recently loaded that McAfee program called Guard Dog (part of their virus suite now) and was shocked (perhaps naive of me) to learn that a lot of the marketing sites send you cookies via other sites that you visit. This program asks you if you want to accept these trojan-like cookies or not. The program also keeps user specified information (name, ss#, etc.)from being sent on the web without your permission. Its worth a look if you don't already have it. With respect to A0L service deterioration, it was almost impossible to log on in the evening due to busy signals (at least 3-4 tries, sometimes not at all) and if you ever got logged on it would kick you out without warning several times (2-3 per session typically). We did not ask about any other offers from A0L, we just called to cancel and they volunteered to knock down the price. Like I said, we found a local ISP that is primarily targeting the business market that we are very pleased with. And the nice thing about using an ISP like that (as opposed to AOL or one of the free services) is that they are not tracking you or your information for marketing purposes like you are concerned about. Last fall someone stole my ss# (I still don't have a clue how) and started opening up credit cards in my name in another state that I've never visited, so I am especially sensitive to all of this now. Regards, Ken.