I warned you guys! GET RID OF AOL!!


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AOL draws fire after releasing search data
Mon Aug 7, 2006 12:05pm ET



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NEW YORK (Reuters) - AOL on Monday said it released a small portion of keyword search information for about 658,000 anonymous AOL users in a move that ignited a firestorm of criticism on the Internet amid calls for tighter protection of the privacy of users' Web searches.

The Internet division of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. released search information on about 20 million searches done from its AOL software over a three-month period.

The data was released about 10 days ago on its own publicly accessible research Web site, but it escaped notice until this weekend.

The link to the actual file, containing searches done by users whose personal ID are replaced with random numbers, is no longer available.

"This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it," Andrew Weinstein, an AOL spokesman said. "It was an innocent-enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant."

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