What you need is software that would reject mail from strangers unless the sender transmits 33 cents into your AOL account.

FORBES: Side Lines

Meanwhile, everybody complains about Groupwise, and I had to almost get special dispensation from the Pope to be able to access my AOL account through the corporate firewall.

FORBES: Reprieve For A Dying Species

Other IM programs don't require that--users of AOL Instant Messenger, for instance, might have a totally different IM name than their e-mail address, or might not even have an AOL account at all.

FORBES

The U.S. attorney said Chilowitz sent the confidential list and data from a Morgan Stanley computer to his personal AOL account and had communications from his Morgan Stanley e-mail to that unnamed "co-conspirator, " who worked at an unidentified consulting company that helped negotiate prime broker rates for hedge funds.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Both of these descriptions mesh with this account of life as an AOL permalancer written for The Awl by Carter Manness.

FORBES: AOL Permalancers Speak: 'We Were Very Clearly Employees'

Observers note that while many Internet users know AOL only as the e-mail account they had in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the company has other properties that aren't typically associated with its brand.

CNN: What's the future of an independent AOL?