Privacy Breach at AOL Results in Firing of Chief Technology Officer

In an apparent breach of its own privacy policy, America Online (AOL) posted the details of more than 2 million search queries performed by 650,000 of its subscribers between March 1 and May 31, 2006 to a web site. Intended to be used only by AOL researchers, the data was accessible to the general public. The user IDs for each search query posted on the AOL research web site were replaced with anonymous numbers, but some have raised concerns that users could be tracked based upon the content of their queries. Even though AOL has since removed the search query data from the web site, the fallout from this event has been severe. Not only have bloggers and online privacy advocates been critical of AOL's actions, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the World Privacy Forum have each filed complaints against AOL with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). AOL announced that it will take steps to correct this situation by imposing new access restrictions to subscriber databases, developing new systems to exclude sensitive information from research databases, and giving employees sensitivity training regarding privacy issues. AOL also fired its chief technology officer, a researcher, and a manager in charge of the project, and announced that it would undertake a complete review of its privacy policy. For more details see: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/07/HNaolsearchdata_1.html; http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/21/HNaolfirescto_1.html; or http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/22/HNaolprivacypolicy_1.html For reports on the FTC complaint against AOL filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and by the World Privacy Forum, respectively, visit: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/15/HNeff_ftc_aol_1.html; and http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/17/HNftcaol_1.html Summary by: Andrei Edwards