AOL CTO Shown the Door

BrewerDude writes "Reuters is reporting that AOL Chief Technical Officer Maureen Govern has resigned from the company. Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?"

Re:The buck stops here

[MBCook]

The problem is that they were not anonymised enough. They took out the user IDs, but they replaced them with numbers. As we've all seen, there was still enough there to identify people that way. To really sanitize it they would have had to remove that part so you couldn't tell which searches were together and which were from seperate users, but that would have made the data less usefull.

They would also have to remove all the searches that are to specific like "birth certificate for Joe B. McWhatever SSN:123-45-6789" and other such stuff which would have been a major burden too.

Re:Scapegoat maybe?

[mooingyak]

If the CTO doesn't want things like this to happen, then there should be procedures in place to prevent it. If she was completely blindsided by this, that's no better than if she was involved with the project and personally gave the okay. It's really only excusable if she's been CTO a relatively short amount of time and hasn't had a chance to get her shop in order.

Re:well, considering other reasons

[Kenshin]

guy
n.
      1. Informal. A man; a fellow.
      2. guys Informal. Persons of either sex.

Re:well, considering other reasons

[Who235]

Good point. I was wrong. Nothing like that was there.

Now, after re-reading the post, I don't know why I thought it was.

Disregard my last post please, and thanks for calling bullshit.

Re:well, considering other reasons

[willpall]

Per your definition, only the plural form may refer to either sex. In it's singular form, guy always refers to a male.

Not likely

[brad77]

It's trading a devil you know for a devil you don't.

According to Ars Technica [arstechnica.com], Govern had only been at AOL for not quite a year. She replaced John McKinley as CTO after he was promoted to AOL's Digital Services group. He'll act as interim CTO until they find someone new.

It's more likely that they just traded a devil they don't know for a devil they do.

Re:Find that in the Constitution, bright boy.

[nolife]

The GOVERNMENT can't search. When you search the internet with a search site, you are using a private or publicly owned companies services. You don't see the difference there? You have a right to bear arms as well, you come to my house with a gun and I do not have to let you in with it! That is MY right because that is my property. If you do not like the terms, use someone else's search engine. You do not have the inherent right to private searching capabilities from one of those companies. Even thinking you do or should is strange. If you want to search the internet from a site that does not save the results, find one and use it. That is your right. If you can't find one, don't search the internet or make your own search tool. That is your right as well.

Re:CTO seems to be the wrong person.

[Simon80]

http://www.freenet.org.nz/misc/google-privacy.html [freenet.org.nz] I might add that if you follow the above instructions, you also may have to worry about cookies... not sure. enjoy

Re:CTO seems to be the wrong person.

[Dawn Falcon]

In the EU there is just that - a right to privacy.

Re:CTO seems to be the wrong person.

[Dr. Donuts]

Actually, it's not a philosophical point.

Constitutional law is based on the premise that you have all rights. There is no such thing as an "implied" right. This is specifically the intent of Amendment X, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

Amendment IV speaks directly to limitations of governmental power in matters of individual privacy. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

So in that regard, the Bill of Rights does indeed recognize privacy as a fundamental right, and one explicitly stated even if the word "privacy" isn't used directly in the verbage.

Courts resolve conflicts between individual rights, in addition to interpreting limitations of Government in the abridgement of individual rights. It's not a question of "extending" privacy's reach, but rather resolving the conflict of an individual's right to privacy vs. other conflicting individual rights.

Re:Find that in the Constitution, bright boy.

[Macthorpe]

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'"

How does this have anything to do with AOL wanting to know what searches you have done? From a more appropriate area:

"Our goal is to better personalize your experience with the AOL Network. The AOL Network plans to use information about the searches you perform through the Network, and how you use the results of those searches, to help customize and improve an AOL Network user's search results and, over time, to provide more relevant content and offers to you."

So, in a publically accessible area of the site, they have told you that they are collecting search information. Not to mention there is a privacy policy that you should be reading before you use the service.

If there is someone to blame for your lack of privacy it is you, throwing your personal information on to a publically available and accessible service, operated by a privately owned company who have told you in explicit terms they are going to use your data however the see fit.

Stop throwing away your own goddamn freedoms, idiot.