Newsvine
  • Welcome
  • Help
  • Report Bug
  • Conversation Tracker
  • Your Column
  • Replies
  • Friends
Type Comments Since You Last CheckedArticle Source Last Checked Stop Tracking All Clear Tracking All
Advertise | AdChoices
Log In | Register
Close the Login Panel
Existing users log in below. New users please register for a free account.

New Users:

Existing Users:

E-Mail:
Password:
Forgot Password?
Please enter the e-mail address or domain name you registered with:
E-Mail/Domain:
Back to Login
Log Out
  • Top News
  • Local News
  • World
  • U.S.
  • Sports
  • Politics
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Business
  • Health
  • Odd News
  • More
    • Arts
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Fashion
    • History
    • Home & Garden
    • Not News
    • Religion
    • Travel
Visit Lee Stone's column >>

LEE STONE

Home Page
Student, Web Developer & Theme Park Geek
Articles Posted: 11  Links Seeded: 774
Member Since: 2/2006  Last Seen: 4/24/2011

What is Newsvine?

Updated continuously by citizens like you, Newsvine is an instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment.

Get a Free Account
Help
Fun Stuff
  • Your Clippings
  • Leaderboard
  • E-Mail Alerts
  • Top of the Vine
  • Newsvine Live
  • Newsvine Archives
  • The Greenhouse
  • Recommended Articles
  • Wall of Vineness
Put a Seed Newsvine link on your own site

AOL subscribers sue over data leak

Seeded on Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:26 PM EDT
Read ArticleArticle Source: Ars Technica
technology, search, data, aol, users, ftc, federal-trade-commission, eff
Seeded by Lee Stone
Advertise | AdChoices

Three AOL subscribers have sued the Internet service provider in the US District Court for Northern California after their search data was made public by the company. In early August, AOL made all the wrong kinds of headlines by posting a complete, three-month set of search queries performed by over 650,000 of its users. The company realized that it made a mistake and quickly removed the data, but not before the entire database of queries was copied and made available elsewhere.

AOL had stripped the data queries of user names, replacing them instead with ID numbers. That was not enough to shield the identities of the users, with the New York Times identifying and tracking down the identity of searcher no. 4417749, a 62-year-old widow in Georgia.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out, especially as people were not easily identifiable. I bet theres some people's search data in there who would like to sue, if only they knew their data was included.

  • Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.

Published to:

  • Lee Stone's Column, All of Newsvine
  • Groups: none
  • Regions: none
  • Public Discussion (0)
Leave a Comment:
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead.
You're in XHTML Mode. If you prefer, you can use Easy Mode instead.
(XHTML tags allowed - a,b,blockquote,br,code,dd,dl,dt,del,em,h2,h3,h4,i,ins,li,ol,p,pre,q,strong,ul)
Newsvine Privacy Statement
As a new user, you may notice a few temporary content restrictions. Click here for more info.
FUN STUFF:
  • Leaderboard |
  • E-Mail Alerts |
  • Top of the Vine |
  • Newsvine Live |
  • Newsvine Archives |
  • The Greenhouse |
COMPANY STUFF:
  • Code of Honor |
  • Company Info |
  • Contact Us |
  • Jobs |
  • User Agreement |
  • Privacy Policy |
  • About our ads
LEGAL STUFF:
  • © 2005-2012 Newsvine, Inc. |
  • Newsvine® is a registered trademark of Newsvine, Inc. |
  • Newsvine is a property of msnbc.com