AOL’s release of search queries made by 600,00+ users is still reverberating. The latest bit of outrage over this privacy leak comes in the form of user No. 4417749, otherwise identified from the AOL data as Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, GA. Unfortunately for AOL,she was identified by two New York Times reporters, Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller.
This we know about Ms. Arnold: she’s interested in “numb fingers,” “60 single men” and “dog that urinates on everything.” Not really damning, but nonetheless spooky to Ms. Arnold.
Ms. Arnold, who agreed to discuss her searches with a reporter, said she was shocked to hear that AOL had saved and published three months’ worth of them. “My goodness, it’s my whole personal life,” she said. [Note: Let’s hope it’s not her whole personal life.] “I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder.”
What’s AOL’s response? Well, basically, tough noogies for Ms. Arnold.
Asked about Ms. Arnold, an AOL spokesman, Andrew Weinstein, reiterated the company’s position that the data release was a mistake. “We apologize specifically to her,” he said. “There is not a whole lot we can do.”
Mr. Weinstein said he knew of no other cases thus far where users had been identified as a result of the search data, but he was not surprised. “We acknowledged that there was information that could potentially lead to people being identified, which is why we were so angry.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:34 AM|Comments(0)
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