AOL braces for class action suit

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 26 September 2006 20:35

Your IT - Home IT

AOL is bracing itself to defend the indefensible as it prepares to face what could go down as one of the biggest class action suits in internet history.

Three of the nearly 660,000 AOL members whose 20 million search queries were posted on a publicly accessible web site over a three month period from March this year, have lodged a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Charges against AOL range from violation of privacy to false advertising and seek financial compensation for all of the affected AOL members.

The story of the AOL privacy breach broke in August and by the time AOL had removed the search queries from its site, the records had been copied and circulated around web.

Although names of the members were not contained in the data, unique numerical identifiers were given for each member so that it was possible to aggregate queries together by the ID and in many cases build a detailed profile of individuals based on the queries they made.

A major problem for AOL is that it has already publicly admitted the error of its actions and fired three senior staff over the incident, including chief technology officer, Maureen Govern.

While AOL's public hand wringing and attempts to make amends for its actions may be seen to be commendable, they are also admissions of liability for the incident.

There is no question that at least some and possibly many members have suffered real and lasting damages as a result of the AOL search debacle. The question remains how much damage and what will be the consequences in financial terms for both AOL and its parent Time Warner.
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