Features

Andrew Girdwood, bigmouthmedia.com, Aug 22, 2006

AOL's investigation into why the internet company published 20 million actual searches and bruised the privacy of 658,000 AOL customers has ended. The AOL board took the review that the CTO, Maureen Govern, was ultimately responsible for the blunder...and fired her.

AOL hopes that the move will help to restore consumer confidence and trust in the company. Maureen Govern had held the position for less than a year.

Ironically Google, earlier this year, successfully defended itself against a subpoena from the United States' Department of Justice which sought to force the search engine to turn over its own search records. Yet only months later, AOL made the same data completely public without requirement.

...

The search history had been designed to be anonymous but the sources of some searches could, and have, been tracked down. AOL search user "4417749" - now identified as Ms Arnold - was found and interviewed by the New York Times. So much for anonymity.

Read more.

Here is a copy of New York Times Aug 9, 2006 article A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749, including an interview with Ms. Arnold.