News > Geek > EFF Files Complaint Against AOL, Seeks Plaintiff for Lawsuit

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WEDNESDAY AUGUST 16 2006 4:00 PM

EFF Files Complaint Against AOL, Seeks Plaintiff for Lawsuit

Submitted by WilWheaton

Edited by Rahodeb

Tags: privacy, AOL, EFF, law

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a complaint against America Online with the Federal Trade Commission, asking them to investigate AOL's recent release of search data from its users.

The complaint . . . alleges that AOL violated its privacy policy and that the group "identified 175 searches from 106 distinct users that appear to contain Social Security numbers, 8457 searches from 3739 distinct users that appear to contain phone numbers, and 10835 searches from 4099 distinct users that appear to contain street addresses. Additionally, 278 searches appear to contain MySpace "friend ids," unique numbers that identify particular personal web pages hosted at http://www.myspace.com."

Lawfirms, the EFF, and other civil liberty organizations are reportedly seeking a plaintiff who will file a lawsuit against AOL, most likely resulting in a class action settlement.

The more the public knows and understands about this case, the better it is for all of us. Privacy matters, now more than ever.

Comments

elicit77

USA

October 2003

AUG 16, 2006 11:05 PM

Awesome.

ClemBurmingham

Cheyenne, WY

September 2005

AUG 17, 2006 01:56 PM

Finally, AOL will get a kick where it won't grow back. However with the lawsuit at hand, it could fail and cause more people to surge into AOL's pool of souls. So then we have to look at it. AOL gets slammed (good) or AOL looks like a victim and gets pity (worse).