AOL’s Fall From Grace

Posted on August 7th, 2006 by Christopher.
Categories: Current Events & Politics.

When I meant Christine she used AOL.. which was almost a reason not to go on a second date with her… but eventually I explained to her the major flaws of AOL.. so today we have another example of AOL’s fall from grace.

The utter stupidity of this is staggering. AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.

The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with ?buy ecstasy? and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless.

Marketers are going nuts over the possibilities, users are calling for a boycott of AOL, and others are just enraged (me):

User 491577 searches for ?florida cna pca lakeland tampa?, ?emt school training florida?, ?low calorie meals?, ?infant seat?, and ?fisher price roller blades?. Among user 39509?s hundreds of searches are: ?ford 352?, ?oklahoma disciplined pastors?, ?oklahoma disciplined doctors?, ?home loans?, and some other personally identifying and illegal stuff I?m going to leave out of here. Among user 545605?s searches are ?shore hills park mays landing nj?, ?frank william sindoni md?, ?ceramic ashtrays?, ?transfer money to china?, and ?capital gains on sale of house?.

Compared to some of the data, these examples are on the safe side. I?m leaving out the worst of it - searches for names of specific people, addresses, telephone numbers, illegal drugs, and more. There is no question that law enforcement, employers, or friends could figure out who some of these people are.

I am assuming that AOL will take this page and the data down soon, but as of the time of this post it has been downloaded 809 times already. There are web interfaces to the data are already appearing.

If you are an AOL customer, I feel sorry for you.

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