NEW YORK, July 25 (UPI) -- There are signs that America Online may have been hyping its subscriber numbers, according to a report Friday.
The Wall Street Journal pointed to a statement this week by Don Logan, who oversees AOL and Time Inc., that one reason for the company's unexpectedly high subscriber losses was the result of "cleaning up the files."
People familiar with the situation say part of the cleanup involves termination of subscribers generated by a little-known AOL initiative, the Journal said.
Starting in 2000, the media giant began selling limited-usage online accounts in bulk for as little as $1 to $3 a month to marketing partners such as Target, J.C. Penney Co. and Sears, a rate far less than the normal subscription. People familiar with the situation say AOL generated at least 830,000 subscribers through these bulk sales, or 16.7 percent of the total subscriber growth.
Currently, AOL has 25.4 million U.S. subscribers.
