The Internet services provider America Online (www.aol.com) announced on June 6 that it has launched a free Web-based e-mail service (http://mail.aol.com). The mail program will provide users with 2GB of storage, as well as an anti-virus and spam component. AOL’s rivals Google and Yahoo offer free e-mail services with about 2.3GB and 1GB of storage, respectively.
AOL said that the mail program is being marketed as an extension of the company's popular chat application, AOL Instant Messenger, that users of that program will be able to use their existing screen name for their e-mail address, that AOL also increased its paid subscription service, providing its nearly 80 million accounts with unlimited storage space, and that AOL is the first online service to offer unlimited e-mail storage.
