Feds Asked to Investigate AOL

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has reportedly asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate America Online (AOL), alleging that the latter published around 20 million search records of its 658,000-odd subscribers, thereby violating user privacy norms. The investigations are expected to be conducted across a three-month period.

Reports say that AOL kept search results of its users posted for nearly a week and a half before removing them, thus enabling people to save their own copies of information and potentially circulate the same over the Web.

The EEF says that AOL has violated its own privacy policy as also FTC regulations, and that it should be ordered to notify the people affected, as also to stop logging search data except wherein absolutely necessary.