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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Techcrunch | AOL: “This was a screw up”. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Techcrunch | AOL: “This was a screw up”
by Rattle at 10:37 pm EDT, Aug 7, 2006

This comment was posted on TechCrunch by an AOL spokesman.

All –

This was a screw up, and we’re angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.

Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.

Here was what was mistakenly released:

* Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.

* There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with those records, but search queries themselves can sometimes include such information.

* According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had 42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered roughly 1.5% of May search users.

* Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.

* The searches included as part of this data only included U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software.

We apologize again for the release.

Andrew Weinstein
AOL Spokesman

For the record, this was the license included with the release:

This collection is distributed for NON-COMMERCIAL RESEARCH USE ONLY.

Any application of this collection for commercial purposes is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.


Techcrunch | AOL: “This was a screw up”
by skullaria at 7:55 pm EDT, Aug 8, 2006

I'm curious as to why multiple links from the aol main page were not working right prior to the release. Coincidence? I don't know, but it seems like such a big web presence would want working first tier links.....OR was there an accident, a hack, a mad employee with access to the web, or were they just scrambling to get everything about the release down as quickly as possible, taking large chunks of their first tier with them?


 
 
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