Tag: aol

  • AOL axes data leakers

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    Tom Raftery
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    I mentioned the AOL and user data cock-up a couple of weeks back. Now, according to a story on CNET today, 2 people have been left go from AOL and CTO Maureen Govern has resigned as a result. For the people whose data was leaked, many of whom were readily identifiable, this will be cold…

  • Where's the case for data retention?

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    Tom Raftery
    in

    Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt announced today that he thinks the greatest danger to people’s privacy is not from leaks of people’s data as happened earlier this week to AOL users but rather from government snooping. I have always worried the query stream is a fertile ground for governments to snoop on the people. This is…

  • The myth of privacy

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    Tom Raftery
    in

    You do know that every search term you type into a search engine is saved by the search engine, don’t you? That time you searched for porn, or an ex boy/girlfriend, or information about an illness you thought you might have – all saved by the search engine. This practice was brought sharply into focus…

  • Digg must be feeling very flattered!

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    Tom Raftery
    in

    They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – if that is true then Digg must be feeling very flattered right about now! AOL’s Netscape site is being converted from a portal into a Digg clone! You can see it for yourself at beta.netscape.com for now. It will convert to the main Netscape site…

  • Web 2.0 to suffer from United States Department of Justice request?

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    Tom Raftery
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    I see Xeni Jardin over at Boing Boing has posted an article on how the US Department of Justice have requested a weeks worth of search data from the major US search engines. Seemingly Yahoo, AOL, and MSN simply handed over the data without any question. Google however held out and is now being taken…

  • Microsoft-Yahoo! announce not-very-instant messaging agreement!

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    Tom Raftery
    in

    In case you missed it, Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced an interoperability agreement to connect their instant messaging platforms. This brings them together up to a userbase of 49 million users – almost on a par with AOL/ICQ ‘s 50 million – Mind you in typical Microsoft vapourware style, this interconnectivity won’t happen until the…

  • Dot blog bubble

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    Tom Raftery
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    With all the mergers and acquisitions going on at the minute, it is only natural to wonder what the value of your site/blog is. I see Tom Murphy recently mentioned that Boards.ie was offered $750,000 for the site back in the original dot.com bubble but they turned it down. I wonder what it would be…

  • Blog for sale – apply within!

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    Tom Raftery
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    I see on Dave Winer’s blog that he has confirmed the rumour that he sold Weblogs.com to Versign – he neglected to say how much for! The rumour mill is putting a figure of ~$5m on it. Couple that with the news that AOL are buying Weblobsinc.com for somewhere between $25-$40m, and the news of…