A O HELL is Back

Filed in archive Privacy & Security on August 8, 2006

The social naivete of "Do No Evil" has given way to the financial reality of "Screw the Customer". The more people scream about privacy and rights, the more they're invaded. The FTC worries about a P2P user accidentally sharing one's own credit card numbers, while corporate America has a fire sale on millions of sensitive records.

Sony BMG plants rootkits. Microsoft installs spyware. Google and Yahoo suck up to China. The airlines roll over for governments. The ISPs bend over for the recording labels. And that's only what is publicly known. Sometimes it just seems like a big circle jerk.

Add AOL to the list. They just released 19 million web searches from 500,000 users, including one man with murder in mind.

AOL said they're very sorry and please hold for the next available service representative.