AOL's PR staff was working overtime this weekend, as the Internet Service Provider got some bad press in both old and new media for practices that are hardly news to those who've followed the company for years.
Forums and chat rooms were full of irate comments about AOL's release of search data on 20 million searches performed by its customers. The data reportedly appeared about ten days ago on the company's research site, but was not discovered until the weekend.
No one's identity was revealed in the data release, since user IDs were scrambled. But privacy advocates were still upset, saying it is unacceptable to show what individual users are searching for online.
AOL took the data down late Sunday evening, but critics maintain the damage had already been done. An AOL spokesman described the company as "angry and upset" by the breach.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a 1,400-word article recounting the months-long ordeal of a St. Louis woman who spent seven months trying to close her dead father's AOL account.
Fifty-five year old Maxine Gauthier told the paper that AOL customer service representatives hung up on her, told her to "shut up and listen" and steadfastly refused to stop charging her deceased father's credit card to the tune of $29.95 a month for dial-up service.
Post-Dispatch "Tech-Talk" columnist David Sheets interceded on Gauthier's behalf, and contacted a customer service supervisor who agreed to close the account. However, Gauthier told Sheets that a few days ago she received a letter from AOL, addressed to her deceased father, Melvin Berkowitz.
"Dear Mr. Berkowitz," it said. "We hope you'll come back to AOL."
AOL has said it will lay off thousands of employees as it reduces or even eliminates its dial-up service and moves towards being a provider of advertising-supported content services.
