Two weeks after AOL released the search records for 500,000 plus users and endured a public outcry, three AOL workers have left. The researcher responsible for posting the data, along with his supervisor, were fired. Chief Technology Officer Maureen Govern resigned.
research
AOL Just Wanted to Help Out The Elbow-Patch Jacket Set
By 8.8.06
The AOL user search queries data leaked on the internet were apparently posted by a technician who uploaded the data without vetting it through in-house privacy department, company spokesman Andrew Weinstein told WP.
AOL Apologizes For Splooging Your Searches
By 8.7.06
A boon for search engine researches quickly tumbled into a privacy snafu as AOL released search query results for 650,000+ users. AOL expression contrition and dismay in the quotes provided by spokesman Andrew Weinstein who said:
AOL User 231392 Illuminated
By 8.7.06
Here’s another AOL user who should definitely be manacled to a rusty pole and beaten with barb wire. Dirty thoughts! Dirty! Dirty!
Portait of AOL Search as a Young, Strange, Man
By 8.7.06
This research paper, authored by the same people listed as authors in the AOL data’s README, reveals what AOL had hoped for people to do with the data.
Why Might AOL’s Data Release Be A Big, Big Problem?
By 8.7.06
TechCrunch thinks there could be privacy breaches as people look up personal info which can then be correlated to their other searches.
AOL User 927 Illuminated
By 8.7.06
Aroused by the thought of juicy big piles of AOL user search data? Consumerist does the wading for you and finds a delightful little item, AOL User 927.
AOL Releases 500,000+ User Search Records
By 8.7.06
Internets are aflame overAOL ‘s publication of the search queries for 650,000+ users . This means that it shows what you typed into the AOL search engine, be it “hardball” or “hardcore.”
Won’t Big Tobacco Please Think of the Children?
By 5.24.06
Over at the Cancer Blog, they are talking about how the Tobacco Industry spends over 12.4 billion dollars a year on advertising. Pretty big number. Channeling Mrs. Lovejoy, they cry out, “Won’t someone please think of the children?” Apparently, the fact that the rolling eyeballs of a toddler might accidentally stray across a tobacco ad in his father’s copy of Maxim will turn that toddler into a chain-huffing smoker.
You Can’t Really Love a Brand, Study Shows
By 3.28.06
It’s not only dogs, it turns out brands aren’t people either.
Quantifying Bad Word Of Mouth
By 3.20.06
We saw over at Church of the Customer Blog that some new research has attempted to quantify the effect of bad word of mouth. The statistics aren’t encouraging for companies inclined to approach the concept of customer satisfaction only in the aggregate.
Stanford Studies Show Getting Ripped-Off is Healthy
By 2.10.06
Companies charge us more out of the kindness of their hearts, new Stanford Graduate School of Business (SGSB) study shows.
In each of three different studies, participants were given energy drinks that supposedly make consumers feel more alert and energetic. Some participants paid full price for the drinks; others were offered them at discounted prices. The participants were then asked to solve a series of word puzzles. In all three studies, the people who paid discounted prices consistently solved fewer puzzles than the people who paid full price for the drinks.
Research Says Nobody Believes the Internet
By 12.21.05
Here’s a dry bone to gnaw on this morning. Some research company called BIGresearch—didn’t spend a lot of research time on the name, apparently—has polled 15,000 folks to determine the influence of media on their purchasing decisions.
