Legal Question in Technology Law in Illinois

Re: Banned from AOL

You are probably stuck with the ban. Look at your service agreement with AOL; it will probably say that you are responsible for all use of your account -- including use by your son. Parents are generally held responsible (although not in the criminal sense) for the misdeeds of their minor children.

AOL has this policy to prevent widespread distribution of obscene material, which could conceivably result in fines and lawsuits if allowed to go unchecked. The policy won't work if it isn't enforced, so don't expect them to relent any time soon. You have no "right" to use AOL other than what is provided in their service agreement, and my guess is that you breached the agreement by allowing your son (even without your knowledge) to send porn through your account.

If you want, you can contact AOL again after your son has moved out, explain the situation, and ask them to lift the ban. You're probably better off just getting another internet service.

Re: Banned from AOL

Find a new ISP, or just register under a different name (i.e., if the account is in your name, change to you wife's, and use your office address instead of your home address). Practically speaking, AOL lacks the resources and inclination to do a Big Brother investigation of every user registration.

Re: Banned from AOL

Any agreement that you have with a service provider is a private contractual agreement. As an attorney who has written the terms of service agreement for an internet site, the ISP is protecting their interest by terminating your service. The courts have been split on this issue, however in some cases the ISP has been found liable for harm created by its users, especially in the transmission of pornography. The judgements against the ISP can run into the millions of dollars. After your son is no longer at home, I would contact AOL again and try to rejoin.

Good Luck!!!!

Re: Banned from AOL

Perhaps your concern, unaddressed in previous responses, is that you have your email address as being at aol.com. Aol certainly has the right to deny service to your address in response to it being misused in the manner you described. Next time (although in your case it sounds like this will not occur again) you might set up your email address as separate from your ISP so that it can be switched independent of the ISP, for example by purchasing a domain name and having mail bounced to whatever ISP you choose, e.g through a service such as namesecure.com or by simply using one of the the free email services like www.hotmail.com or www.mail.com.