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AOL Axes Three Over Search Data Fiasco
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-08-21
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
There are some twenty-million search queries floating around on the Internet, generated by 658,000 users and never meant for broad distribution; the ill-advised release of that data forced AOL to remove three people from the company.
Time Warner's online services arm AOL sent its chief technology officer and two other people to the exits in the wake of the kerfuffle over the publication of private search data on the AOL Research web site.
Chief technology officer Maureen Govern had been with AOL for almost a year. She and the researcher and manager responsible for the search data were all declared "no longer with the company," a Reuters report noted.
The news service received an "internal company memorandum" issued within AOL. Former company CTO John McKinley will retake his old job pending the selection of a new CTO. A separate memo that reached Reuters, written by AOL CEO Jonathan Miller, noted a task force on the company's data retention and collection policies would be headed up by Vice-Chairman Ted Leonsis.
Although only online for a few days before being removed, the data was quickly downloaded by others and can be found on a few websites created to provide an easy interface to querying that data. Diligent searchers can obtain the data from torrents and other locations.
The news of the data's release and deletion hit at possibly the worst time of year - right at the start of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, California. Google CEO Eric Schmidt, whose company provides search and advertising services to AOL as part of a $1 billion investment in AOL, found himself answering questions about the deal during a question and answer session with conference host Danny Sullivan.
Repercussions to AOL could continue for some time. The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the FTC to investigate the company for violating its privacy policy and the Federal Trade Commission Act.
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Tag: AOL
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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