How many businesses use AOL?
Most AOLers are consumers and their kids. They don't have the same service
expectations.
Roeland-
In my case, it was the Gun Owners' Action League (GOAL) which had
a formmail script for new members to join on their web site (which
ShaysNet hosts). The form was e-mailed to their membership chairman's
account on AOL. Now, I'm not saying this is a good idea, but this was
what they were doing. It appears that most people - even those who
haven't read the appropriate RFCs - fully expect ALL e-mail to be
delivered to the intended recipient(s). Speaking from my experience,
people seem to regard e-mail as equivalent to USPS first-class mail and
have the expectation that it will be handled as such. No one I know
considers it excusable or acceptable that e-mail can and will be silently
discarded by anyone other than the final recipient. Uh, anyone other
than those in the AOL postmaster's office, that is.
David Leonard
ShaysNet
I think you'd be shocked by the number of small businesses that use AOL.
I hate to say it, because I (*&*$^&% AOL, but I have users traveling to
spain and tokyo and other far reaches of the globe. They can always get a
POP to dial up when using an AOL account. We have yet to go to a city where
they cannot get on the net with their same $20 a month account No special
instructions, no need to check first.
James
Especially those who've read the 1986 law requiring it.
Citation, please?
Title 18, Chapter 119, sections 2510 through 2522.
It forbids "interception" of electronic mail.
Interception is defined as "acquiring the contents", but it's defined
broadly enough that if you get the message onto your hard drive and don't
deliver it, obviously you weren't acquiring it for the purpose of
delivering it, so you have intercepted it for reasons not related to
providing the service, and thus have committed a felony for EACH email
intercepted.
Then presumably rejecting the connection with a '571 eat my spamfilter'
outright is legal.
-Dan
I have an account with http://www.attbusiness.net/ for the same purpose. The only place I've been recently where there wasn't a local dialup was in the French Antilles -- St.Barths and St.Martin.
That's how I read it. But I damn sure don't want to get into a discussion
about this law here; that'd send Susan over the edge. 
It's old news, passed in 1986, talk to your lawyer.
Or email me in private for those few details I can give about the one
time somebody went up against me on this law.