AOL, after being faced with two lawsuits regarding their email ad violations, agreed to donate $100,000 to charity. In addition to this, AOL also agreed to inform their members – both paid subscribers and those who are using their services for free – on how to opt out the ads on the footer of the email.
The settlement is still pending but if approved, this will address the two lawsuits filed against AOL – the first one regarding the misleading and confusing footer ads and the other one is regarding the same ads violating a federal privacy law.
The controversial footer ads started when AOL decided to insert these ads more than three years ago. Though in April 2008, AOL allowed paying subscribers to opt out these ads, the company failed to reach their members to tell about this news.
This year, around July, AOL changed its policy to give all their users the freedom to opt out the ads to provide great consumer experiences to their customers which includes the email.