Via Slashdot comes news of AOL's updated AIM Terms of Service. I took interest in this bit, it seems to imply (to me, uneducated as I am in the ways of the Internet) that AOL claims the right to intercept and repurpose any communications transmitted over AIM: In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

Now, I use Trillian which is a multi-protocol chat client, and includes an encryption bit. I don' t know whether the encryption bit is end-to-end or if it's end-point to AOL to the opposite end-point. However, I'm going to be looking now for a chat/IM application that doesn't require an intermediary to connect two or more clients.

And yes PDF, I know about GAIM, I'll look into that as well