Web Shorts

AOL stealthily raises ‘BYOA’ admission fee
While television ads tout America Online's multitude of services such as chat rooms, most of AOL's 33 million customers subscribe to it for access to the web. But AOL offers customers of other ISPs access to its services through the "Bring Your Own Access" plan. It believes there's enough of a market for these services that it quietly raised the BYOA monthly subscription fee to $14.95 from $9.95 in October. Currently only one million people pay for access to AOL features, on top of what they pay for dial-up or broadband connections through other companies. AOL officials contend the price increase is justified, as it comes after five years of continually upgraded services. Only new subscribers since October have been hit by the price increase. AOL jacked up the price of its general subscription fee to $23.90 from $21.95 in June.

EUniverse network snaps up marketer L90
Online entertainment network EUniverse will buy internet direct marketer L90. L90 will continue to exist as its own brand and will keep serving its existing publishing and advertising customers. The acquisition marks an effort on EUniverse’s part to attract more advertising and increase the reach of its online properties, which include humor site Madblast, greeting card site Flowgo and matchmaking service Cupid Junction. The purchase of L90 follows the sale last year of its AdMonitor and DouProfiTools technologies to DoubleClick. L90 then turned its focus to selling more online ads. L90 also bought off-line marketing firm Novus. EUniverse is spending about $55 million on L90.

MarketWatch.com to feature TheStreet.com news
In what looks like another case of if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, financial news site MarketWatch.com has allied itself with one of its fiercest competitors, TheStreet.com. Under the terms of the deal, MarketWatch will sport headlines from TheStreet’s fee-based site, RealMoney. MarketWatch also will offer its readers the chance to subscribe to some of TheStreet’s paid services, such as financial charts and email newsletters. The financial terms of the partnership were not publicized. Both companies, however, are suffering from the effects of the slumping ad sales market, with their shares trading at sub-$5 levels, and need to scrape out extra revenue wherever they can.

AOL mends Instant Messenger security hole
Internet service provider AOL says it has fixed a major security flaw in its Instant Messenger software. The breach, the discovery of which was announced on Wednesday by vigilante security investigator/benevolent hacker group “w00w00,” supposedly made it possible for hackers to seize control of other people’s machines. In addition to poaching personal data, hackers would have been able to use the hijacked computers to launch attacks on other computers and servers. But AOL officials say that no one ever took advantage of the hole. That’s probably a good thing, given that experts believe such a hacking would have been virtually impossible for a victim to prevent.

Heavy metal band Anthrax offers disease info
The heavy-metal rock band Anthrax is capitalizing on last year’s wave of anthrax infections in a rather benevolent fashion. Its official web site, Anthrax.com, was plagued with visitors seeking insights into the deadly bacterial disease. But rather than testily posting a “wrong web site” notice, the band posted a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When people first log onto Anthrax.com now, they can click on an image that will take them to the band’s official site or click straight through to CDC.gov. The bioterrorism anthrax attacks renewed the aging band’s notoriety to some extent. Band members initially joshed about changing the name from Anthrax to “Basket of Puppies.” But, as the T-shirts the band members wear in a photo on their site say, they’re not changing their name.

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