Aol

America Online Inc. said yesterday that it was testing a system that alerts Internet users when people they know are logged on, so they can hold electronic discussions with them.The country's No. 1 online service, which has 8 million users, is extending to the Internet the services, called Instant Messenger and Buddy List, that are already available to AOL members. Dulles, Va.-based AOL is holding trials of the Internet service, which will also be available to nonsubscribers, through the middle of this summer.

America Online Inc. settled consumer-protection complaints yesterday with the attorneys general of 36 states, including Maryland, hoping to end a flogging of negative publicity by agreeing to resolve complaints that it sold online subscriptions to 1.2 million new customers without upgrading its technology enough to handle them all.The deal calls for refunds of up to $39.90 for consumers who contact AOL, depending on how much they have been able to use...

Challenging the cable TV industry's hopes of dominating the market for high-speed Internet connections to the home, America Online said last week that it would invest $1.5 billion in Hughes Electronics and jointly introduce a raft of new consumer services with Hughes' DirecTV unit. These include AOL-Plus, which will provide high-speed connections over satellite, and AOL TV for using TV channels for such functions as interactive shopping, Web surfing, e-mail and electronic chat.The deal will widen the choices available in the potentially huge consumer market for high-speed Internet service and interactive television.

AMERICA ONLINE INC., the world's largest Internet service, is raising its flat monthly fee 10 percent to $21.95 to keep pace with increased usage among its more than 11 million customers.AOL's monthly average for online time has soared by 44 percent since it began offering a flat rate at the end of 1996, and free monthly trials and unlimited access have increased the company's costs.While some feel that the move will mean price increases from other Internet providers, AT&T Corp., MCI Communications Corp.

"AOL" is all but O-U-T at AOL Time Warner Inc. America Online Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller has proposed to corporate Chairman Richard Parsons that the expanded name be shrunk to what it was before the ill-fated megamerger in January 2001. As a result, Parsons and senior managers are considering changing the name to Time Warner, but the decision will be made "in due course with the board," spokeswoman Mia Carbonell said yesterday. The 13-member board, including six members with AOL roots, meets next month and could take up the issue then.

DULLES, Va. - Long before America Online's problems were apparent to most, veteran AOL executive Ted Leonsis knew something was terribly wrong at the company he helped create. By fall 2001, Leonsis - a former AOL president whose role had been marginalized over the years - was convinced that the media giant was on the wrong track, too focused on cutting lucrative deals with business partners and not doing enough to serve customers and expand into broadband. AOL needed to admit that it had lost its way and change course, Leonsis concluded in an impassioned 10-page memo that he fired off to AOL Time Warner Inc. Chairman Stephen M. Case and Robert Pittman, the co-chief operating officer, encouraging both men to bridge their differences and work together.

I often go back over an e-mail to correct spelling or grammar. Sometimes I change a phrase. Not always -- but enough times to drive me crazy -- AOL will step in when I tap the "send" and say, "This has been revised. Do you want to save it as a text file?" I can answer yes or no. I tried no the first dozen times, and AOL cut me off and the e-mail disappeared into space. So I tried yes, and the same thing happened.I guess that this is what you get for taking time to get your e-mail just right in our supercharged world of information overload.

A Baltimore packaging company and major Empowerment Zone employer on the verge of extinction filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against America Online Inc. seeking $80 million, claiming that the computer services provider breached agreements and acted in bad faith.PTP Industries Inc.'s lawsuit against AOL also charges the Virginia-based software maker with negligent misrepresentation and defamation for "engendering in the mind of the public that PTP had engaged in criminal activity," with statements that the company committed mail fraud.

NEW YORK - AOL Time Warner Inc. said yesterday that it has agreed to buy IPC Group Ltd., the No. 1 magazine publisher in the United Kingdom with about 100 titles, for $1.64 billion. IPC, a unit of Cinven Ltd., sells about 350 million magazines a year, including Horse and Hound, New Musical Express and Marie Claire. AOL Time Warner wants to increase subscriptions to magazines such as Time and In Style, and to services such as America Online, as advertising growth declines at its media holdings.

WHEN AMERICA Online sued for exclusive use of its e-mail slogan, it was lucky the case was tossed out by a federal judge and not an English teacher. Otherwise, AOL might have been sentenced to hours of banging erasers.As the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie about a cyber-relationship, "You've Got Mail," became a hit, AOL sued to halt AT&T from telling its e-mail users, "You have mail."That's because AOL subscribers who receive electronic mail are alerted by a computer voice that chirps "You've got mail" as the words "You have mail" appear on the screen.