Serving as a Bad Example: AOL Privacy Debacle - Reaction at AOL
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It wasn’t just the bloggers who picked up on the release of data and took AOL to task for it (more on that in a moment). By August 7 AOL was in full retreat. It had yanked the data and issued an apology. Here is the bulk of the statement, from AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein:
"This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.
"Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.”
Weinstein then goes on to explain the nature of what was released, saying that the data included “roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.” That must have been cold comfort if you were among those whose searches were chosen.
Needless to say, this wasn’t the end of it. AOL CTO Maureen Govern chose to resign (possibly to avoid being fired). Two other employees were fired: Dr. Abdur Chowdhury, the researcher who posted the data, and one other employee. Dr. Chowdhury seemed to be almost criminally naďve as to how the data could be used, despite being “anonymized.” An article in the New York Times reported that Dr. Chowdhury revealed how horrified he was over the privacy violations while having lunch with two of his colleagues and a University of Washington professor of computer science. “He didn’t anticipate that this kind of data could be used to track down individuals,” explained Professor Oren Etzioni.
In an email to AOL employees, company CEO Jon Miller stated that a task force would be created to develop new best practices concerning privacy. It would also consider how long search and other data should be saved. Furthermore, the company would reexamine its restrictions on access to databases containing sensitive member data. “After the great lengths we’ve taken to build our members’ trust and be an industry leader on privacy, it was disheartening to see so much good work destroyed by a single act,” Miller stated in the email. “This incident took place because some employees did not exercise good judgment or review their proposal with our privacy team. We are taking appropriate action with the employees who were responsible.”
Next: Reaction of the Press and Privacy Advocates >>
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