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 AOL Exposes UsersPosted on Aug 8, 2006America Online recently released the search queries of more than 650,000 of its users for research purposes. The data contained three months’ worth of searches that were attached to unique user IDs. No names were included with the release, but private information was easily gleaned from some of the queries. Although AOL has since removed the information and apologized for its release, calling it a screw up, copies continue to circulate around the Internet. C|Net:
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By rabblerowzer, August 9, 2006 at 3:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
America Online recently released the search queries of more than 650,000 of its users for research purposes.
I’ll bet the following sentence is a lot closer to the truth.
America Online recently SOLD the search queries of more than 650,000 of its users for research purposes.
Report thisBy Mad As Hell, August 9, 2006 at 2:41 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The sad thing is that this is nothing new with AOL. Every couple of years, this SAME issue crops up with AOL: They view their customers’ information as a commodity they want to sell.
Then they get caught, it makes the news, AOL apologizes and promises not to do it again…and when the hub-bub dies down goes back to it.
The first time in happened, that I remember, was in the mid-90’s, around 1995. The day they bought Compuserve, in 1997 was the day I cancelled my Compuserve account—that very day. I cancelled it because AOL had already been shown to be selling private, confidential information on its customers to advertisers.
This is why I will not use AOL, this is why I recommend people not use AOL, and this is why I throw away all the AOL offers—I know, sooner or later, AOL will violate my confidentiality. If I use AIM, I ALWAYS assume it is NOT private and AOL may use what they see on it.
It’s sad that the only trust you can have for AOL is that they WILL violate your privacy, sooner or later.
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