iChat safe again? AOL seems to be listening

Over the weekend, everyone suddenly realized that AIM’s current Terms of Service agreement strips users of privacy. I posted about it, as did a lot of other people. Now, however, it looks like the collective power of blogs complaining about the bad wording of the TOS may actually be having positive effects.

News.com reports that AOL intends to unveil a new TOS tomorrow eliminating the nasty phrase at the root of the problem: ”You waive any right to privacy.” Anne Mitchell, president of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, called AIM’s policy a ”complete waiver of privacy” and says ”It’s great that they said they’ll alter the terms of service so it’s not that nightmarish. But until I see it, I won’t be satisfied.”

I guess tomorrow we’ll find out if our chats are our chats again.

UPDATE: I found an article that provides an actual lawyer’s take on the TOS.