H4cked off: What on Earth does Verizon see in the cratered remains of AOL? It can't just be dial-up subscribers...

Run away! Verizon's record on online censorship raises serious questions over its proposed AOL acquisition

AOL. Yes, it is still alive and sustained, on the one hand, by two million Americans who can't or won't get broadband, paying $10 a month to dial-up instead, as well as an advertising network encompassing a number of new media "properties" on the other.

So what AOL has to offer Verizon seems somewhat rinky-dink compared to the US telecom giant's own highly profitable, semi-monopolistic operations. And it begs the question, what on Earth does the $127bn turnover company see in the cratered remains of AOL, once the world's largest internet service provider?

In its day, AOL probably did more than any other company in introducing millions of people worldwide to the internet, particularly in the UK and US: first, to its "walled garden" of content and then, later, letting them loose (for good or ill) onto the rest of the internet.

And, while it's been fading away over the past 15 years, it has also made an expensive Horlicks of social media: AOL Instant Messenger was an early pioneer in instant messaging that it let fade away, and in March 2008, it wasted $850m buying now-dead social media website Bebo, before selling it on for buttons two years later.

Ultimately, though, AOL decided content and advertising was where it was at. Or, at least, where its bumbling management could do least financial damage. It bought Huffington Post, the online newspaper started by millionaire lefty Ariana Huffington, where most of the content is contributed free, for $315m in 2011 and also owns well-known tech sites EnGadget and TechCrunch, among others.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Just last year, Verizon started its own tech site, called Sugarstring - and then banned it from discussing net neutrality, web surveillance by the National Security Agency and goodness knows what else because they were issues in which the company was deeply mired.

"[Think of it as] a tech lifestyle site bankrolled by Verizon," lahed its editor-in-chief, Cole Stryker, who quite openly admitted that the company would exercise a draconian level of censorship. "There are two verboten topics (spying and net neutrality). But I've been given a pretty wide berth to cover pretty much all other topics that touch tech in some way."

Indeed, it really was like a major newspaper group, like the Telegraph, banning all comment regarding a major advertiser, like HSBC. Something that could surely never possibly happen...

Net neutrality is the principle that the company that provides the internet connection shouldn't discriminate between different types of traffic. It is a predominantly US issue as the structure of the US communications industry basically left it as a straight fight between the cable companies and the consolidated telecoms companies, like Verizon.

Choice is limited and prices are high - yet the companies want to make still more money from content or premium services, and don't like companies like Amazon and NetFlix muscling in on their well-protected patches.

"At Verizon, we've been strategically investing in emerging technology, including Verizon Digital Media Services and OTT, that taps into the market shift to digital content and advertising. AOL's advertising model aligns with this approach, and the advertising platform provides a key tool for us to develop future revenue streams," justified Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam when the deal was announced.

What that basically means is that Verizon, like its cable company rivals, wants to muscle in on content too - adding even more weight to its lobbying against net neutrality.

In the UK, the environment is beginning to look more and more like the US as result of both competitive and regulatory pressures.

The consumer market is now dominated by Sky, with its television services; BT, which has added sport channels to its online mix; Virgin Media, which is the only player not dependent on BT; TalkTalk, which has thrown together its own half-arsed television package based around YouView and Freeview; and Orange/EE, which can't even match TalkTalk.

Across Europe, meanwhile, the EU is pushing for a more US-style communications system, particularly in mobile, while the shift towards mobile internet has made network access more important than ever, favouring the old incumbent national telcos. All this means fewer operators, less competition and higher prices. Thanks, guys.

Back in the US, instead of competing with Wired, The Verge, and Computing, Sugarstring disappeared within months. Online news, views, features, videos and opinions is a highly competitive marketplace and big telcos don't really do competition. At least, not proper, full-blooded competition, anyway. Too bad for the hapless hacks lured to give up good jobs to go and work there, but that's their problem.

Taking over a bunch of media websites that are already almost as successful and well-read as Computing, however, is a different matter.

Will it add fuel and money to Verizon's lobbying against net neutrality? Given that the company only abandoned Sugarstring in December, it presumably also remains as keen on 'net censorship in its own interest as it was just six months ago - so what impact would such an acquisition have on the openness and honesty of online media owned by such a communications behemoth, with its own special interests to promote?