AOL executive resigns in wake of data privacy furore

NEW YORK - AOL chief technology officer Maureen Govern, who oversaw the division responsible for accidentally releasing search data for more than a half a millions internet users, has resigned from the company, according to an internal company memorandum.

John McKinley, AOL's former CTO, will take over on an interim basis, according to the memo obtained by Reuters on Monday. Govern joined the company last September.

AOL declined comment.

AOL apologised on August 7 for releasing information onto the Web about 20 million keyword searches from about 658,000 anonymous users over a three-month period. Disclosing the data was against company policy, AOL said at the time.

The release of data by the online division of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. drew the ire of privacy advocates, who called for the US Federal Trade Commission to review the company's customer data retention practices.

Collecting and sharing internet user data for any purpose is under close scrutiny by privacy watchdogs. internet search leader Google Inc. won plaudits for refusing to comply with US government demands to hand over search data.

A researcher in AOL's technology research department and the employee's supervisor have also left the company in the wake of the disclosure, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

In response to a torrent of criticism across the internet, AOL also said it plans to create a task force to review its customer information privacy policy.

"We have to earn their trust each and every day and with each and every action we take," AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller wrote in a separate memo obtained by Reuters.

The task force, headed by AOL Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis and AOL General Counsel Randy Boe, plans to review the company's data collection and retention policies, according to the memo.

AOL currently stores search data that can identify users for 30 days. Anonymous search data, the kind divulged by AOL in early August, is stored indefinitely, the source said.

Privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a complaint with the FTC last week requesting an investigation into AOL's privacy practices, arguing that the internet provider did not need to store such search data.

AOL's task force will also review other measures to protect users, including ways to prevent the storage of any sensitive data in the research database that include 16 digits, like those of many credit cards, the source said.

Time Warner shares fell 5 cents to US$16.45 ($26.09) on the New York Stock Exchange.

- REUTERS