AOL giving out AIM screen names based on an email address?

it seems that aol has decided to start giving out your aim name — based solely on an email address.

i’m not sure when this started happening, but i will describe how to see and confirm the behavior.

this is a very bad move on aol’s part. when an aim account is created, the user is supposed to provide a valid email address. this email is used to confirm the account (an optional step) as well as facilitate forgotten passwords, etc. that email was provided to aol with the understanding that it would not be shared. this new behavior is a breach of that trust.

anyway, to see how this works:

1. sign in to mail at aim.com using an account that does not have the targeted screen name/email pair on the buddy list.

2. add a new contact. add only the email address.

3. in just a minute, on the right side bar, i was offered the chance to IM that person — and it even showed me their aim screen name.

the targeted account, to my knowledge, does not have a public profile.

anyway, i suspect the way to protect against this is to change the email address on your aim account to something obscure that you don’t use.