Consumer satisfaction with America Online is extremely low compared with other Web portals and with every almost sector of American industry, according to a new report. The University of Michigan released on Monday its latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, the results of survey that follows various sectors of the economy each quarter. The second quarter report focused on cars, household appliances, PCs and Web portals. For the first time, the survey also measured satisfaction with search engines and news and information Web sites.

America Online got a consumer satisfaction rating of 59 out of a possible 100, the lowest of all companies measured in the Web portal category. The top scorer was Yahoo with 76. MSN came in at 72. The average for the portal category was 68. "Scores this low are rarely sustainable in competitive markets," University of Michigan Professor Claes Fornell said in the report, regarding AOL. "Either there is improvement, or the company is forced to leave the market--unless, of course, it has significant monopoly power. AOL consists, of course, of much more than portals, but the low ACSI score may be symptomatic of more widespread problems."