Crawford, an outside attorney representing AOL, in a May 12, 1999, letter to Prodigy. 'Prodigy's actions constitute tortious interference with prospective economic advantage,' said Susan P. Prodigy's breach of AOL's system allowed it to effectively commandeer AOL's system for its own use, depriving AOL of customers it might otherwise have signed up, an attorney for AOL contended. Some companies, like Prodigy, attempt to make money by running small advertisements on the pop-up screens that contain the messages. Instant messages are short e-mail notes that can be exchanged in real time, making them ideal for chatting over the Internet.

of improperly linking Prodigy's instant-messaging system, called PIM, to AOL's much larger service in order to gain access to tens of millions of new users, according to private AOL legal correspondence. But in a private dispute with another Internet service provider last year, the Dulles-based company was not reticent about asserting its financial interests.ĪOL accused Prodigy Communications Corp.

Until now, AOL executives have played down the economic potential of instant messaging in response to inquiries from federal regulators who are concerned about AOL's dominance in this fast-growing field. Together, the products account for as much as 90 percent of the market, according to some industry estimates. It also offers an instant-messaging system called ICQ, with about 80 million users. Company documents obtained by The Washington Post show that AOL has fiercely sought to protect what it calls its 'prospective economic advantage' in instant messaging against rival Internet service providers.ĪOL counts 61 million users of its AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, software. 'It's not really a revenue-generating business for us.' 'We've always viewed it as a feature, not a business,' Case said in testimony last month before the House Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications, trade and consumer protection. chief executive Steve Case called the company's instant-messaging system nothing more than a popular component of its online service, one that does not generate revenue. When questioned recently by members of Congress, America Online Inc.

Icq 1998