AOL gives it all away for free, including customer data…
AOL is a piece of work. On one hand… clueless management… on the other hand capable engineers who can clearly differentiate their heads from their asses… well, some of ‘em.
AOL’s latest “big thing” is giving stuff away for free… 5GB e-mail accounts, freedom for ~ 5,000 employees, and privacy-free customer records. Goddamn, AOL rules!
Releasing existing paying customers doesn’t seem to be a part of AOL’s “free” strategy, though… as witnessed by “The Call.”
August 7th, 2006 at 1:35 am
Here’s something pretty creepy. Let’s look at user 39509 in file #1.
He searched for:
oklahoma disciplined doctors
oklahoma disciplined pastors
tons of myspace layouts including “religious graphics for myspace”
sequoyah county oklahoma sex offenders
sequoyahcountysheriff.org
sanyo tv serial number b9300244587937
rental properties in tahlequah oklahoma
chase bad kids
tahlequah public schools
and then the creepy part:
pre teen porn pics
(more than once)
That’s clearly enough information that could identify him, especially the TV serial number… Now this guy, based on what he’s up to, I wouldn’t mind so much if he was identified, but … you get the idea. This data is unbelievabley private.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:12 am
How did you download this data? Wouldn’t it be confidential?
August 12th, 2006 at 11:50 am
A site where you can search the data is here:
http://www.datablunder.com
August 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
@Tim: AOL repleased it publicly- ie.- it was available on one of their web sites. They took it down, but there are mirrors of it… and now web interfaces to search it.
@ty Thanks for the link.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
A *quick* site where you can browse the data is here:
http://www.frogspy.com