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3 leave AOL over privacy goof

Two AOL employees were fired and its chief technology officer has left the company in the aftermath of a privacy breach that involved the release of more than 650,000 subscribers' Internet search terms. I still fear AOL user #907 and pray that I never bump into him in my neighborhood.

Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers' user names, the search queries themselves contained Social Security numbers, medical conditions and other data that could be traced to an individual. Maureen Govern, the technology chief, will be replaced on an interim basis by John McKinley, who had held that position before becoming AOL's president for digital services.

Chicago Sun-Times

Posted by | Tue, Aug 22, 2006 - 06:03 AM