One Year Later…
Last year I wrote a blog about the purchase of AOL by Verizon Communications, but I did not have any information on how this may impact either provider’s email system. Here we are almost exactly one year later, and it’s time for an update.
Verizon and AOL recently announced that the 2015 acquisition has lead to a shift of verizon.net mail support to AOL’s email platform. According to the Verizon announcement, the scope of this change is limited (at this time) to users in California, Florida and Texas, but I assume that users in other states will be shifted to the AOL platform in the near future.
AOL has historically had a more thorough set of published guidelines for senders to follow in order to get their message to its intended audience, and the process for remediation has been relatively straight forward, meaning this change may benefit senders more so than if AOL mail was going to be transitioned to the Verizon platform.
Per AOL’s help article, the verizon.net addresses being transitioned to their system will not be changed, which means you shouldn’t have to update the domain on those email addresses in your database. Yay for not having to update your subscriber lists!
Per AOL’s FAQ:
Will my email address change?
AOL says, “No. Verizon and AOL have partnered to ensure your verizon.net email address will not change. You will use your verizon.net email address, including @verizon.net, as your username for AOL Mail.”
Another FAQ from the help article does make me wonder if we might see some verizon.net mailboxes shut down sometime in the not-too-distant future:
What will happen to my verizon.net email if I do not complete the basic AOL registration to move my email to AOL?
“If you haven’t migrated your verizon.net email to AOL Mail before April 1, 2016, you will still have 6 months to migrate your email if you remember your password. Unfortunately, there is no way to recover the password if you haven’t migrated your email by April 1st,” according to AOL.
I interpret this statement to imply that those who do NOT register their account on the AOL platform by that deadline may no longer be able to use their verizon.net address. I will be looking for clarification on this and report back, due to the fact that it could lead to an increase in hard bouncing verizon.net addresses come October!
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