Blocking IP's from AOL

blocking ips, ip addresses, aol

[techiemon]

Is there a way to block web access from an AOL member? (Meaning there is an AOL member I want to block from viewing my website). From what I have been reading it seems that unless I block the whole of AOL than I cannot block anyone from AOL. Is this the case? Even if I could block AOL access from a specific city that would be great, but it seems impossible. If anyone has any knowledge abuot this please post.

Thanks!

[hartlandcat]

As AOL IPs change very regularly, I'm afraid the only way is to block all AOL IPs. However, please try to avoid blocking the whole of AOL as it would be totally unfair on the rest of the users. You'll be loosing out on all the visitors from the largest ISP in the world.

[techiemon]

I'd have to agree, but right now I don't recieve that many hits from AOL anyway.

Are there any websites out there that I can do a reverse look up by city for IP Addresses rather than looking up an IP address to get a city?

And does AOL provide information on accounts being created from the main user account? They probably won't tell me, but it's worth a shot.

[BlueSky]

Are there any websites out there that I can do a reverse look up by city for IP Addresses rather than looking up an IP address to get a city?

Won't do any good if there are any. AOL uses proxies. A person could live in one city and be connected via one or more proxies located in totally different states.

And does AOL provide information on accounts being created from the main user account? They probably won't tell me, but it's worth a shot.

No, due to privacy issues. If you're having problems with one of their customers, you could always submit a complaint and request the account be terminated. Most ISPs here will do that if the person is doing something malicious. Alternatively, you can ban entire IP ranges each time he appears on your site. Like hartlandcat said, AOL has a huge customer base (~26 million customers in the US and another ~9 million abroad) and you'll be cutting off a lot folks as you ban a proxy.

[tedster]

I've recently been doing some geo-location analysis on one client's traffic -- and the service we purchased breaks out AOL proxies into a separate list from the rest of the location.

I can confirm that even the same city or state will not be using a consistent IP block over time. The best localization you can get for AOL is a whole country -- and that's barely any good at all.

[techiemon]

I did check the IP addresses of this particular person and indeed they are coming from many different states, so you are correct it seems almost impossible, unless I block all of AOL, to get rid of this person.

He is not doing anything malicious perse, more or less spying on my site which I don't like.

I did read in another forum that AOL is a big pain because they use proxies and they ARE NOT the internet, they just connect people and I doubt they will ever change the way they use IP addresses, but it would be nice if they did...