Released: August 02, 2006

AOL users get free email

Source: By Anick Jesdanun, AP [San Francisco Chronicle]

Stepping up the chase for online advertising dollars, AOL will give away e-mail accounts and software now available only to its paying customers in a strategy shift likely to accelerate the decline in its core Internet access business.

The decision, announced Wednesday by AOL parent Time Warner Inc., removes the few remaining reasons for AOL subscribers to keep paying when they already have high-speed Internet access through a cable or phone company.

“We’ve listened to our customers, and many of them want to keep using these AOL products when they migrate to broadband — but not pay extra for them,” said Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s president and chief operating officer.

The move marks the end of an era for a company that grew rapidly in the 1990s by making it easy to connect online, giving millions of Americans their first taste of e-mail, the Web and instant messaging through discs that continually arrived unsolicited in mailboxes.

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