America Online is dealing with a PR backlash this week after it mistakenly deleted hundreds of thousands of emails. The Dulles, VA-based Web company, according to EarthLink
Director of Corporate Communications Arley Baker, blocked EarthLink users from messaging AOL customers for as long as two weeks. Baker believes other email providers were shut out
by AOL, too, evidently by some spam-deflecting computers that got a little "overzealous." Needless to say, customers were peeved, and one retired journalist in Arizona alerted the
press. AP and Business 2.0 ran the story. "You wouldn't have this kind of scenario if your cable TV was out," says Baker. "In this Internet age, all it takes is an angry customer
in Arizona to take the issue into his own hands."
(Baker, EarthLink, 626/296-2400.)