[e-privacy] I dati di AOL

[Anonymous via Panta Rhei]

* AOL's Data Valdez Violates Users' Privacy

As recently reported by the blog TechCrunch and now the
major media, AOL intentionally released three months of
search queries by 658,000 AOL users. Though AOL has removed
the data from its site and rightly apologized, the grave
damage is already done. The data is available all over the
Net, and AOL may have violated its own privacy policy as
well as existing federal law. Congress should heed the
lessons of this Data Valdez and enhance protections for your
privacy.

Particularly considering the uproar over the Department of
Justice's demands for just this kind of information from
Google only months ago, AOL's actions demonstrate a shocking
disregard for user privacy. Search terms can expose the most
intimate details of a person's life and, in doing so, cause
great harm.

Consider just a few hypothetical situations. Would you want
your employer or credit company knowing that you searched
for "how to file for bankruptcy"? Would you want anyone to
know you searched for "HIV positive clinic," "breast cancer
health services," or another illness-related query? What
about "rape victim" or "depression" plus "counseling"? What
about searches that reference your political or religious
affiliation, or your sexual orientation?

Though the data was associated with random ID numbers, that
information could still be connected back to an individual
given enough clues. Consider, for instance, what vanity
searches for one's own name or MySpace profile could reveal.

This incident highlights the dangers of allowing search
companies to store this kind of personal data. We're still
investigating, but it appears this disclosure may violate
the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which
strictly regulates disclosure of your Internet
communications, along with AOL's own privacy policy.
Regardless, Congress should take note of this latest Data
Valdez by creating stronger, crystal clear legal protections
for user information and by limiting data retention.

DeepLink Follow-up, "Weblogs, Inc. CEO Tells His AOL Bosses
To 'Not Keep Logs of Search Data'":
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004866.php>

News.com article about the disclosure:
<http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6102793.html?part=rss&tag=6102793&subj=news>

EFF Article, "Subpoenas and Privacy":
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004385.php>

For this post:
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004865.php>