The following appeared the "Electric Word" of Wired magazine's October 1997 issue...

DUNCE CAPS:

We keep hearing (because they keep telling us) that the folks running America Online are customer-savvy marketing geniuses, especially former Procter & Gamble pitchster Steve Case and MTV founder Bob Pittman.

So why is AOL mired in a public relations pattern suggesting a permanent case of Tylenol- tragedy syndrome? Just when they had eliminated the busy signals and healed the self- inflicted wounds of their flat-rate pricing debacle, Steve and Bob aimed at their own extremities again, by surreptitiously removing a phone number privacy promise this summer form the AOL Terms of Service.

When will the geniuses start heading off problems, instead of mopping up after them?


That's what we'd all like to know...