That's great. I can't wait for the AOL Search Security™ feature. I'd easily bypass it.

I think this is not just an AOL issue. Its an issue for all corporations to take note and create viable business practices that sustain "Users trust".

Where there is no "trust" in todays market space, the product and company will suffer.

Just think of how many AOL users are sweating out there.. and how many are hestiate to log back again into AOL.. Has anyone done some sort of trending on alexa or hitwise to see who many users are actually using AOL now , after this incident ?? that would be really telling information for any coroporation!!

Great list Philipp! Here's another:

AOL 'Special Friend' Finder: Enter a list of perversions, fetishes, and/or illegal acts and get the names & e-mails of individuals who have searched for them recently.

and /pd... I'm afraid many AOL subsribers (not applicable to all AOL 'users') will not have even heard about this incident. By definition an AOL subscriber also hasn't heard about cheaper dial-up options, or DSL, or Google for search. They are an isolated group. Of course, on second thought, since AOL won't let you cancel your subscription when you want to maybe that's not fair!

=="since AOL won't let you cancel your subscription when you want to maybe that's not fair!"

Ken : good point!!!

But as AOL is a part of the Public company and if there is a breach of user data and privacy, then by SEC and SOX's mandates they will need to notify those users within 30 days.. thats how I read the law

Liike another forum member indicated.. a users ID has been established including the state of residense, the car s/he drives and where s/he is going to relocate soon..

Maybe other would like to weigh in on this point. Does AOL have the legal and moral responsbility to notify their (anon) users about the incident ??

Excellent question. I feel certain it is safe to say that they are morally obligated to notify all users whose searches were made public (even though they were not directly identified).

From what I've read here and on other blogs some of these users will be finding out about the publication of their searches (if they haven't already) when they are contacted (or even harassed) by people who've parsed the data. Some might even be contacted by law enforcement. So AOL had best hurry up and warn them... and assemble their lawyers!

As to the legal ramifications; I feel certain that we'll be hearing about lawyers filing suit for one of these 'anonymous users' or filling a class action lawsuit very soon.

And now the lawyers have a way to find clients, and the AOL users a way to find themselves, and others a way to get up to various types of mischief, at a new search page set up to search the database:

http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/

Some of those ideas are real businesses:

"AOL Search Buddies" – as you probably know, a company just lanuched for that idea.

"AOL Search Security" – There's censor-minded groups who actually sell this as a service!