TWX: AOL to Offer Personalized Email Domains for Free to All Web Users

AOL today announced that, starting in September, it will make personalized email domains available for free to all Web users. AOL is the first company to offer this service, which will be called AOL® My eAddress, at no charge.

With AOL My eAddress, anyone can set up and register a completely customized email address using .COM or .NET domains, and add up to 100 additional identities onto their personal domain, all at no charge. For example, someone could choose a domain that family, friends, teams, social organizations and others could use, for example anyname@mygroupname.com," and other members within that group could have their own email identity using that domain. Or, Individuals can also choose to set up a new personalized address with the popular and widely-used AOL.com domain, at no charge.

Consumers will be able to use their personalized My eAddress domain as an email address, as their AIM® address to send and receive instant messages and access their Buddy List® feature, to access features across the AOL network, and, coming soon, as the address of their own personal Web page on the free AIM® Pages social networking service.

"AOL is about to make online communications more personal than ever before," said Roy Ben-Yoseph, Director of Communication Products, AOL. "The most popular Internet activity is email, yet many people don't have an online identity that's truly personal and meaningful to them. Starting next month, with the launch of its My eAddress service, AOL will make personalized email domains available to all online users at absolutely no cost. Not only can people customize an email address with their own personal domain and connect up to 100 other identities, giving families, teams, social organizations and small businesses a new way to represent themselves, but they'll also be able to use it for instant messaging and as a Web page address. This is an opportunity that millions of people have been waiting for, and AOL is thrilled to be the first to provide it."

The free Web-based My eAddress email service is the latest complement to the popular AOL.com and AIM.com Mail products, which provide choices and flexibility for online consumers and convenient access from any computer. Earlier this month, AOL announced that its AOL.com email will be available for free as a new value for its longtime members and as it opens up its flagship communication feature to a Web wide Internet audience.

Among the features that will be available with the free AOL My eAddress service:

-- Ability to completely customize an email address using a personalized .COM or .NET domain and identity, e.g., "you@thenameyouwant.com."

-- Setup, registration and the use of a My eAddress email domain and identity is all free (one domain per user), as is the ability to invite other people to join their personalized domain. Each account holder can add up to 100 additional personal email identities associated with their domain, all managed through an easy Web-based control panel.

-- Ability to check email from My eAddress and AOL.com domains through one mailbox accessible from the Web at www.aol.com, open mail clients (like Outlook and Thunderbird) that use the IMAP protocol, and through the new beta version of the AOL "Streamliner" product.

-- Industry-leading spam and anti-virus protection to help keep a user's email box free from junk mail and harmful viruses.

-- 2 GB of email storage, which can be accessed from any Web-enabled computer, and a search feature that makes it easy for users to find messages in their personal mailbox, sent mail, or stored mail.

-- An Address Book that also includes presence indication to see when contacts are online and able to receive instant messages.

-- Integrated access to AOL's other free Web-based products and services, including AOL® Calendar and, coming soon, AOL® Pictures, a comprehensive online digital picture service that offers free and unlimited storage of digital photos.


AOL's new My eAddress service will be available to all Web users for free starting in September at www.aol.com.

Individuals who want to create an AOL screenname with the AOL.com domain can do so for free at www.aol.com. AOL members who canceled within the past two years can reclaim their screen name or re-set their password by signing into AOL Mail or AOL’s software. Former members who don't remember their password but do know their AOL Account Security Question or former payment method will be able to reactivate their screen name.