Unbelieve-able - tip from a reader.
NEW YORK -- AOL released the Internet search terms that more than 650,000 of its subscribers entered over a three-month period and admitted Monday that what it originally intended as a gesture to researchers amounted to a privacy breach and a mistake.
Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers' real user names, the company acknowledged the search queries themselves may contain personally identifiable data.
AOL's home page is shown on a computer screen Friday, Aug. 4, 2006 in New York. AOL will shed as many as 5,000 employees, a quarter of its global work force, within six months as the company seeks more than $1 billion in savings to offset its decision to give more services away for free. That decision, analysts say, may not be enough to draw new visitors. Key to AOL's success will be how well it taps its strengths in video and instant messaging. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) (Mark Lennihan - AP)
For example, many users type their names to find out whether sites have dirt on them and then separately search for online mentions of their phone, credit card or Social Security numbers. A few days later, they may search for pizzerias in their neighborhoods, revealing their locations, or for prescription drug prices, revealing their medical conditions. All those separate searches would be linked to the same numeric ID.
Ok, the best search so far is: "gas tank empty how to fix".
Posted by: lurk | Monday, August 07, 2006 at 11:34 PM
cindi lauper is the closest I came lol.
Posted by: SinCerely | Tuesday, August 08, 2006 at 12:20 AM
AOL also managed to block all email messages coming from Israeli embassy/consulate. They simply marked them as spam. Obviously AOl did find spam messages from any Islamic/Pro-hezbollah group
Posted by: Peter | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 11:31 AM
AOL also managed to block all email messages coming from Israeli embassy/consulate. They simply marked them as spam. Obviously AOl did find spam messages from any Islamic/Pro-hezbollah group
Posted by: Peter | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 11:34 AM
AOL also managed to block all email messages coming from Israeli embassy/consulate. They simply marked them as spam. Obviously AOl did NOT find spam messages from any Islamic/Pro-hezbollah group
Posted by: Peter | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 11:35 AM
AOL also managed to block all email messages coming from Israeli embassy/consulate. They simply marked them as spam. Obviously AOl did NOT find spam messages from any Islamic/Pro-hezbollah group
Posted by: Peter | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 01:15 PM
No wonder it took me so long to get my account cancelled.
I should have just told them I was heading off to jail.
Posted by: Steve O | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 11:30 PM