2 Ousted in AOL Privacy Breach

Two AOL employees were fired and its chief technology officer left the company after a privacy breach in which the Internet search terms of more than 650,000 subscribers were publicly released.

Maureen Govern, the technology chief, was replaced Monday on an interim basis by John McKinley, according to a memo AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller sent to employees. McKinley had held that position before becoming AOL’s president for digital services.

The researcher who released the data and that employee’s direct supervisor were fired, said one person familiar with the company’s decisions. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the release of personnel information was not authorized, would not say whether Govern’s departure was voluntary.

AOL, a unit of New York-based Time Warner Inc., admitted this month that it had made a mistake in releasing three months’ worth of search terms. Although AOL had substituted numeric identifications for the subscribers’ user names, the company acknowledged that the search queries themselves might contain personally identifiable data.

At least two groups have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. In its complaint filed last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation accused AOL of breaking a promise to protect its subscribers’ privacy.

In a separate memo, Miller outlined a four-part plan to “help ensure this type of incident never happens again.” The measures include the creation of a task force to review privacy and data retention policies and the evaluation of technologies designed to flag sensitive information.