In a quick move to quell public outrage, AOL has fired its Chief Technology Officer and two other employees linked with the shocking release of web search data of more than 65000 AOL users.
In my previous post AOL's scary experiment & Search Engine Privacy Scandal I had posted the following:
In the first week of August, AOL released search related data of more than 65,000 AOL users for connecting with the Information Retrieval and Academic Community. In a few days, AOL has called this data release a "screw-up" and acknowledged that the data release was "obviously not appropriately vetted ". Is AOL's self-critical apology enough I wonder.
What takes an Internet company to realize that we are not having a fun shouting party when voicing privacy concerns. What takes a big Internet media company to put in place processes and people who would understand the seriousness of data that the company collects?
The impact of AOL's blunder on its Web Search business will get clearer as time goes. (Infact Google supplies web search to AOL). My2cents: User trust is difficult to gain and easy to lose. I dont visit AOL frequently but will perhaps avoid searching at AOL all together.
