AIM Bots: Useful or Spam?

An anonymous reader writes "Imagine my surprise this morning when AOL AIM popped up a window and introduced me to two bots that it automatically added to my buddy list. " Two seperate issues- one is simply auto adding robots to your friends list, which is very uncool. The second is a corporation using bots in an official capacity. This is an interesting trend, although technically speaking, not that far from the eggdrop of old.

Meh.

[Fraize]

Right-click, Delete Group. Done.

Re:Ever heard of GAIM?

[redwards]

Actually, it popped them up on Trillian Pro, too.

Re:Ever heard of GAIM?

[LearnToSpell]

And Gaim latest (yep, heard of it). I don't know what that post was about. Why would it matter what client you're running?

Add me to the "immediately-deleted-and-moderately-annoyed" list.

Re:I'm just surprised...

[Wieland]

They have a near-monopoly on IM communications

In the US, that is. Here in Europe, IM seems to be almost exclusively MSN. Hardly anyone uses AIM this side of the Atlantic.

Re:I'm just surprised...

[Phatboy]

Don't be so sure about that monopoly, it all depends on where you live. I'm in the UK and don't know anyone who uses AIM - everyone uses MSN Messenger instead. Not that AOL isn't in a strong position in the places where they do have a monopoly, but doing things like this don't help them in the markets they don't yet control. Maybe they've just decided that it's not past the average user's annoyance threshold and not going to harm them.

Re:AOL Intruder

[kevin_conaway]

Its not limited to AOL Software. I received the messages/group on Gaim as well.

Re:Ever heard of GAIM?

[Anonymous Coward]

It did for me - I'd suggest it was a function of their accounts database and how they're implementing this rather than the client itself, because in ubuntu breezy's gaim, it popped up (and added two buddies and a group to my list) and was banned forthwith by yours truly.

Not completely useless.

[jasonhamilton]

I thought they were useless at first, but if you have a cell phone like the sidekick2 where web browsing is super slow, but AIM works flawlessly, the bot will let you do movie lookups much quicker.

Re:The Next Step: Adding Artificial Intelligence

[s88]

Rather than imagine, why don't you just run my software?
http://jaimbot.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Re:Not on GAIM, yet

[LordJezo]

I use GAIM here and when I signed on this morning I saw them, I had no idea what was going on, I thought it was some kind of new GAIM feature since I just upgraded a day ago to the new version (I am slow on those things)

Maybe its being pushed in phases?

Re:Meh.

[Khopesh]

Not done.
Delete the group and close your IM client.
Now open it again and log back in. AOL messages you wondering why you deleted its bots, though they are not put back.
Now you're done. Damnit.

The bots didn't add you, AOL added the bots for yo

[BobPaul]

The true question is: why did my IM client forgot to ask me about those new contacts? I would have denied those bots in the click of my mouse...

If someone adds YOU to THEIR buddylist, then you are notified. If YOU add SOMEONE to your buddylist, you are not notified (since you added them).

Here AOL added these two buddies to everyone's buddylist. This is easy enough since AOL has stored a copy of your buddylist on it's server for years. Clients connect and then sysnchronize the buddylist. The buddies showed up in your client durring the sync. As far as your client knew, you logged in on a different computer and added these two names yourself (thus putting them in the server-side buddylist). The fact that AOL added the names on your behalf is transparent to the client.

So that's why.

Re:Meh.

[Kitsuneymg]

I just did this. I then closed and opened gaim again. No new messages. Although the confirmation IM is f*cking annoying.

captcha:maskable
heh

Re:fighting with bots

[Kitsuneymg]

I tried.
(12:24:06) Unable to send message: Request denied
=[

Re:The bots didn't add you, AOL added the bots for

[Covener]

If someone adds YOU to THEIR buddylist, then you are notified

Not on AIM you aren't.

Re:fighting with bots

[angusmci]

Rather than swear at it, I tried typing a smiley.

Bot: I didn't find any good matches 4 U, but may I ask you a question?
Me: No.
Bot: Mm hm. Such negativity. You are in need of some holiday spirit! Type M.
Me: Shan't.
Bot: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec.

If you let it ask you a question, it goes into a kind of 'interactive' question and answer mode. It's easy to get stuck in this mode, with no obvious way to revert to generalized searches. The best way to get back to the 'top level' behavior (where it takes anything you type as a search keyword) is by swearing at it. There's a moral there somewhere, I suppose.

In the words of Marvin:

What a depressingly stupid robot.

Re:AOL Intruder

[beanlover]

I had the bots added to my Trillian this morning when I logged in. Using Trillian Basic 3.1.

Re:The bots didn't add you, AOL added the bots for

[VGPowerlord]

I use GAIM [sourceforge.net], and the bots were added to mine.

I guess this shows which one has better support for the protocol. ;^)