AOL may have publicly exposed about 19 million search requests
made by more than 658,000 AOL subscribers but Google doubts it will happen to them. Sounds like a good time to quote “Never say never” to the tune of Jessica Simpson’s Public Affair song. Imagine if someone did get hold of the Google results, it would be a national security disaster !
Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt says : ``We are reasonably satisfied ... that this sort of thing would not happen at Google, although you can never say never,'' The lapse provided a glaring example of how the information that people enter into search engines can provide a window into their embarrassing -- or even potentially incriminating -- wishes and desires. The search requests leaked by AOL included inquiries seeking information about murder techniques and nude teenage girls. Mountain View-based Google owns a 5 percent stake in AOL, which also accounted for about $330 million of the search engine's revenue during the first half of this year. AOL also depends on Google's algorithms for its search results. Schmidt told reporters Wednesday he hadn't had time to contact AOL executives to discuss the problems underlying the release of the search data, but questioned his business partner's judgment.
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