AOL Subscribers Sue Over Release Of Search Data

An anonymous reader points out an AP story indicating that AOL hasn't seen the end of its own public embarrassment after airing some dirty laundry on behalf of its customers. Excerpted from the story: "Three AOL subscribers who suddenly found records of their Internet searches widely distributed online are suing the company under privacy laws and are seeking an end to its retention of search-related data ... The lawsuit is believed to be the first in the wake of AOL's intentional release of some 19 million search requests made over a three-month period by more than 650,000 subscribers. ... Filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., the lawsuit seeks class-action status. It does not specify the amount of damages being sought."

Who's AOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this AOL you speak of?

Three?

[Who235]

Three AOL subscribers. . .

They must have been the only 3 AOLers who met both of these conditions:

a) They weren't searching for "hot kiddie lolita horse love" and were consequently unafraid of that search rearing its ugly head in open court.

b) They were aware enough of the wider internet to know their data had been released in the first place and the implications thereof.

Three? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I can see the settlement now...

[zen611]

1000 free hours of AOL!

very popular search item on AOL

[postmortem]

http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/search.php?page=1 &textfield=&textfield2=cancel%20aol [aolsearchdatabase.com]

Re:Wondering

[pluther]

Hm. Now that you mentioned it, it got me curious so I tried it.
I entered my SSN into Google.
It replied with "-1635"

I'd sue too....

[HiredMan]

I'd sue too if they outed me as user of AOL.

Damn, that would be really, really embarrassing and my l33t status would be called into question.

=tkk

Lllama Herders

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the company that makes Winamp. They used to be in the free backup diskette business.

Re:very popular search item on AOL

[LunaticTippy]

Hm. AOL must not have a very good search engine. All these searches for "cancel AOL" and none of them directed the user to anywhere in aol.com!

AOL's response

[Anonymous Coward]

810565: Online privacy laws
810565: privacy lawyers
810565: Online privacy
810565: EFF online privacy
810565: lawsuit online privacy search
810565: sex with domesticated animals
810565: pictures of sex with domesticated animals
810565: privacy data retention
810565: privacy search data
810565: privacy search data law

Re:With luck, this will accomplish two things:

[Richard W.M. Jones]

1) Scaring other ISPs and related companies into better privacy safeguards $80

2) Hastening the timely demise of AOL ... Priceless

I can see the plaintiffs now...

[cyberfunkr]

"Yeah, see, my name is Joe Blow and I was trying to find my sister's MySpace page. Her name is Lolita. I know she used to work at a race track so I did a search for her: Lolita Blow Job Horses. What's so wrong with that? Now give me my share of the settlement."

Re:Wondering

[Who235]

Actually, the first 5 digits can be determined based upon how old he is, and which state he was born in (assuming typical issuance at birth).

Wow, I didn't know that.

This is becoming a pretty scary thread. I feel a little bad for having started us down this road.

If anyone steals that guy's identity and buys a jet-ski (or anything else), I'm going to kick their ass.

Don't worry original parent poster, I've got your back.