New Name Reflects Both Current State of World and Company's Primary Source of Profits

New York, NY /DenounceNewswire/ -- 11 August 2003 -- AOL Time Warner, Inc., announced today it is planning to change its corporate identity to "War, Inc." The decision to remove "AOL," "Time," and "-ner" from the company's name will be made at a group board meeting next month.

"Considering the state of the world today and for the forseeable future, and considering where most of our profits come from due to media focus on war, we believe this new name will better reflect the company's position and values going forward," said Dick Parsons, group chief executive.

The move would also symbolize the effort underway by the company's America Online unit to defeat Microsoft Corporation's efforts at gaining market-share in the Internet and online services markets.

CNN, the company's successful cable news operation, has profited enormously in the past 18 months from the Iraq War. CNN is now viewed as a more strategic asset to the company than America Online, the shrinking internet company that is losing members faster than the trashcans of the nation can fill up with AOL CD-ROMs.

Washington, DC /DenounceNewswire/ -- 14 July 2003 -- Two members of Congress have unveiled a new bill that proposes to bar America Online from releasing blog, or web log, features to its 34 million members later this summer. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, announced today that the "Blogosphere Purity Act" would in effect ban America Online "from encouraging, facilitating, or otherwise supporting the creation of web logs, or blogs, among its users."

Citing years of complaints from non-AOL users who say AOL users are "clueless" and "unsophisticated," the bill documents how the worldwide USENET newsgroup service "went downhill and never recovered" once AOL users were given access.

Blog use has skyrocketed on the World Wide Web in the past year, and is poised to become a major new business on the Internet. Earlier this year, Google, Inc., purchased privately-held Pyra Labs, makers of the popular Blogger service, a transaction many Wall Street analysts believe is only the beginning of the commercialization of blogs.

AOL, cognizant of the controversy its foray into blogs has generated, is marketing its planned service as "AOL Journals" after its user community told the company they found the term "blog" confusing.

"These people find the word 'word' confusing," says Mort Renfro, president of Clueful Bloggers Against AOL, a Washington pressure group which has been lobbying Congress for six months. "Imagine how low the quality of conversation is going to go if AOL users start blogging all over the place!"

The CBAA organization has also proposed a replacement for RSS (known as the Really Simple Syndication protocol) called ASS (AOL-free Simple Syndication) and threatens to block any AOL-generated RSS feeds if AOL proceeds.

Another group, calling themselves ALBAA (A-List Bloggers Against AOL), has also come out against AOL's plans, citing fears that their fame and celebrity will decrease if the blogosphere grows any bigger. "These AOL bloggers won't even recognize our names," said one ALBAA member who requested not to be identified. "We've worked hard to climb to the top and we're not about to let 34 million bozos change that."

DULLES, VA /DenounceNewswire/ -- 5 November 1998 -- America Online, Inc. announced today Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Minihan, Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service, and George J. Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, have been elected to its Board of Directors. AOL now boasts a board that includes the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell; a former Nixon aide General Alexander Haig; and two distingished leaders of the U.S. intelligence community.

"I am proud today to announce the election of Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan and George Tenet to America Online's Board of Directors. Both of them possess records of proven leadership and commitment to public service that will be invaluable to our company as we work to build our business and the interactive medium into the next millennium," said Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of America Online, Inc.

Mr. Case added: "Lieutenant General Minihan's record of service to our country, both in the military and in his current work with the NSA, is without equal in our times. His commitment to America's security and our country's future fits squarely with AOL's determination to build an online medium that dominates people's lives -- helping us to learn, to organize their lives, and even to engage more fully in the political process."

Mr. Case continued: "George Tenet is a visionary leader in both the world of intelligence-gathering and the mass marketplace. He has played key roles in landmark achievements for our society. His expertise in the world of cloak and dagger will serve AOL in meeting the critical challenges facing the Company and in fulfilling our commitment to build a medium that threatens society as no other before."

Mr. Case wasn't done yet, adding further: "We look forward to working with the NSA and the CIA as we migrate the AOL network over to complete ECHELON compatibility with the next six months." ECHELON is the government's secret worldwide network that monitors all voice, data, fax, video, satellite, and digital communications in every country, recording, indexing, and collating every utterance made between every man, woman, child, business, or other organization, as well as between any two computer systems anywhere.

"The perception that the Internet can change and improve peoples' lives and to reconnect them to their community is powerful and extraordinary," said Lt. General Minihan. "I'm honored to serve on the Board of a company that has been leading the way in creating such a perception in the public's mind, and leading the way to shaping a medium that that will open new doors of opportunity for our national security state."

"In the next few years, public policy discussions in Washington and around the world will have as much to do with the development and ultimate impact of the Internet as any technological advance," said Mr. Tenet. "I look forward to serving a Company that is at the center of these policy discussions and is playing a large role in determining the success -- or failure -- of people around the world."