Tuesday, 22 August 2006

AOL CTO Resigns Following Privacy Breach

Controversy reigns again as AOL's chief technology officer left the company, and two other workers were fired after a privacy breach that involved the intentional release of more than 650,000 subscribers' Internet search terms.

"This incident took place because some employees did not exercise good judgment or review their proposal with our privacy team," AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller said in a memo. "We are taking appropriate action with the employees who were responsible."

"Rearranging personnel is not going to get to the root of this problem, a problem which extends far beyond AOL and to the rest of the Internet industry," Kevin Bankston, staff attorney with the EFF said. "As an industry, the search engines have been unacceptably tightlipped about what their practices are regarding search logs."