Aparently AOL is the source of all evil on the internet, if you believe this article.  I give to you a sample:

The main lesson that online companies have learned from AOL is: give away free stuff and then treat your customers like shit. First you get the suckers addicted to your services to the point where they reveal their personal information to you, and then you sell them to as many advertisers as you can. Make sure they're buried in spam, too. And for good measure, you might want to spy on them or possibly convert their CPU into your own personal data-crunching slave.