AOL fined for "illegal" subscriber contract clauses

The French courts have requested that AOL remove clauses from its subscriber contracts, deeming them "abusive" or even "illegal". Fellow ISPs Free, Neuf Telecom, Tiscali and Wanadoo could now be in the frame for a similar judgment.

Following a complaint lodged in February 2002 by French consumer association UFC Que Choisir, judges in Nanterre decided that the ISP's contracts contained 31 clauses that are either "abusive" or "illegal". In the decision, the judges gave the ISP one month to remove the majority of the clauses, on pain of a €1,000 fine for each day that AOL France drags its heels.

The company also has to pay €30,000 to the consumer association in damages and costs.

The tribunal examined contacts drafted in 2000 and modified in March 2003 following recommendations from the Abusive Clauses Commission.

One of the court's demands will mean a clause that allows the ISP to unilaterally modify the contact will be removed, as will clauses that foresee a tacit acceptance by the subscriber of changes to pricing, billing and general conditions and ones that absolve AOL from any responsibility for interruptions or errors in the service.

An UFC Que Choisir lawyer said that the case was part of the association's study into getting contracts cleaned up. "We are looking into the general conditions of sales by professionals, letting them know those that we find abusive or illegal, then starting negotiations to get them modified or removed," she said.

With AOL, the discussions came to a halt, so UFC turned to the courts to help get things moving. The consumer association has also started similar procedures against other heavyweights in the residential internet access market – Free, Neuf Telecom, Tiscali and Wanadoo. The verdicts aren't expected to be returned until 2005.

However, the AOL France management intends to appeal the Nanterre judgment. It "regrets this decision, [which] doesn't reflect the relationship we have with our clients", the company said in a statement. "Half of the clauses concerned no longer feature in our general conditions of use."

Nevertheless, the ISP has to clean up its contacts at high speed, given the court's decision isn't open to delay – it won't be suspended, appeal or not. AOL France will also have to publish the verdict on its homepage and let all its subscribers know the content of the judgment by email.

Estelle Dumout writes for ZDNet France