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AOL CTO Shown the Door
BrewerDude writes "Reuters is reporting that AOL Chief Technical Officer Maureen Govern has resigned from the company. Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?"
Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough?
Well, it would certainly be nice to see companies (and governments) go back to a model where "the buck stops here" and take responsibility for their actions. I don't know who ultimate thought "I know what let's do" and release these records for public consumption without even "anonymizing" them, but the CTO is an appropriately responsible party I would guess.
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Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?
The paradox is that the one who takes overall responsibility is axed, yet they have learned from the experience. They have also undoubtably done many things right, which their successor may goof on.
It's trading a devil you know for a devil you don't. Should have just docked her pay, made her stand in a corner of sommat.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They fired the person who released the data and the supervisor, and the CTO was shown the door. I think the management structure was a bit too flat for me to not be suspicious. Was there people between the supervisor and the CTO who should've gotten the sack? Or was the CTO shoved onto her proverbial sword as public sacrifice to blow over the controversy? Or what are they really covering up? Inquiring minds want to know...
Being allowed to resign isn't good enough. He should have been fired. It's ridiculous that once you get high enough on the corporate ladder, you don't get canned like the rest of us would. Us peons screw up a little bit, we get fired. But if you're a big cheese, and screw up hugely, you are allowed to resign. Life's not fair I guess.
I fail to see how this could be the CTO's fault...
What the CTO did is merely reveal that AOL was deliberately holding on to this privacy time-bomb and exposed it in a relatively minor way. The person who actually leaked the data should be praised as a whistleblower.
I want whomever APPROVED STORING the logs to be fired; and whomever adviced that hanging on to this kind of data is worth the potential risks should be locked up and sued.
AOL Chief Technical Officer Maureen Govern has resigned from the company. Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?
... or the CEO.
Assuming she honestly resigned, big kudos to her for taking the responsibility and the heat, and not passing the buck down to the people who need the paycheck. It's not often that a person in power will take the fall - most often, 100% of the blame gets placed on lower-level people who were just doing what they were told.
I'm sure she didn't make the decision or understand the ramifications - after all, she is a CTO. And hopefully there are some people at AOL who would have known that this was a bad idea. But in the end, it was up to her to prevent this from happening.
Forget moralizing the release of the keywords. From a business standpoint, this was terrible for AOL. They are trying to reinvent themselves as an internet service rather than internet access that, among other things, is responsible for your computer security. My memory, at least, is that recent AOL commercials have all stressed in particular that buying AOL helps protect you against "viruses". Then they release these search results, and eviscerate this new image they were building for themselves. Heads had to roll.
The AOL release of search terms is (A) a boon to research on real-world searching habits, and (B) a wakeup call for those so stupid to think that anything they send over a PUBLIC network unencrypted is ever in any way private (which in this case it really wasn't either).
Were there privacy agreements in place with those who did the AOL searches? Not if you read the TOS carefully. We should all thank AOL for making it very publically clear that any searches may be later drug up under other conditions. Google promises never to release the search terms but still retains them and that means MANY different people within Google probably have access to that raw data, not to mention anyone at your ISP.
If anyone out there thinks this is bad, I encourage you to start your own search firm that clearly outlines you will never store search results and then get pummeled into gravel as companies that can try new search techniques using historical searches and data walk all over you with R&D. That's the whole tradeoff here that we all implicitly agree to by using these companies services, they are also getting our data. If you don't like it stop using the services but don't expect the companies to change something that is not very practical to change.
If you are worried about such companies having your data remember a few things:
1) You are one of hundreds of millions.
2) Your life is really not that interesting when looked at in great detail. This is true of anyone on Earth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Put away the love beads, hippie. You and others who believe that kind of nonsense need to get real.
If your Privacy rights were "inherent" as you say, the US would not have had to pass the National Privacy Act in 1988.