TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

It's finally happened. AOL is feeling the worst kind of heat they can from their mishap many months ago when they intentionally yet accidentally released the search data of over 650,000 customers. Three AOL customers are suing the giant, citing violation of privacy law. Seeking ultimately to prevent AOL from retaining this sort of data in the future, it is in direct opposition from other crowds (such as the U.S. Government) that wish to force ISPs into retaining this type of data for even longer. It became worse when real names and addresses began getting tied to the “anonymous” search IDs AOL assigned the entries in the leaked database, which became a source of much controversey. It's a class-action suit, and no further details regarding it or the people who filed it are public yet, but it will be very interesting to see this pan out.