We are going after a targeted group of businesses that are creating opportunities for themselves using other people's property. The Internet has very little to do with this.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People are out there saying we have to devalue our properties because of the Internet, but it hasn't even come into play!
There are massive efforts on the part of the internet's corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.
I think with every successful consumer Internet business, there will be lawyers that are interested in going after your company, especially when they think that there's a financial incentive.
There's the idea that people should be able to control how the information that they're giving to websites is used and monetized in a more clear and powerful way. That's something that probably will need government action.
There is no Constitutional right to prey on others. The Internet is just a piece of technology, like the telephone. Society has the right to modify its uses.
Our belief is that it is a basket of well-diversified companies that are playing the Internet, but are not direct Internet companies.
The thing we have to be careful of is that the Internet is a global communications medium, and if one country tips the balance in regulating its use or regulating what companies or individuals do on the web, it could have an economic impact that might be unintended, quite frankly, by the regulations themselves.
We have people who pay to use our products and services, and they are heavily engaged in our content. If you erase the brand perceptions of AOL, and consider that people pay to use our properties, you would probably consider this one of the most valuable audiences on the Internet.
The Internet provides the access to resources, so it's incumbent upon the people who control those resources to make sure that the economic engine stays intact.
See, what we were going to do was say, the Internet is this great business strategy tool.