AOL posts information of 650,000 users online

[PrntRhd]

AOL posted information on 650,000 users online. The members were identified only by identification number but is possible to identify users based on the information posted:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive-amounts-of-user-search-data/

Now what the heck were they collecting all this data for?

[PrntRhd]

And now AOL apologized:
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/aol-search-data-shows-users-planning-to-commit-murder/

Of course that one user looking up ways to kill his wife may have some issues with the law enforcement community after the disclosure of the personal searches.

Edit:
Any user who did a vanity search by seeing what popped up under their name, phone number, social security number, or address will be able to easily matched to their ID number assigned.

[Whyzman]

Now what the heck were they collecting all this data for?I don't understand the point they were making... Hmmm...rule of thumb, "follow the money." Unless, it's directed to potential advertisers on their site...

[PrntRhd]

They made some reference in their apology to some "academic" purpose, but there is a very thin line between academic study of web surfing studies and "data mining" for marketing or other uses.
The existence of a database always begs bureaucrats to use the collected data.

[pentachris]

They've resorted to giving their service away, and the day after that announcement they announced that about 5000 of their employees are getting the pink slip. I think it's pretty obvious this is data mining for marketing purposes to try to help generate revenue.

Could AOL's death knell be tolling?

[Laguna]

Could AOL's death knell be tolling?

I would like to think so anyway.
I have never been with AOL yet I am still afraid of them...

[classicsoftware]

What bothers me is how much information is stored. Don't think for a second Google, Yahoo and others don't have the same information about you.....

[deddard]

What bothers me is how much information is stored. Don't think for a second Google, Yahoo and others don't have the same information about you.....

This is stuff that a lot of people ignore. Sure - let's use Google Desktop, browser etc etc - it's all free right? Now where did all that spam come from?

[Whyzman]

I was unsuccessful finding the info I read around the time Google's IPO was going down. It was pretty much profiling users in every imaginable way to be able to focus ads.

[Whyzman]

About midway down the page is a title "Why Google is Evil."

It's not the article I read, which was more of a Google slant on things related to their IPO. However, this individual points out many of Google's goals...

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=google