If Your Ex-Girlfriend is AOL Customer #2708, She's Pretty Upset!

AOL did the dumbest thing they could have ever done. Without any customer permission, they released the search detail records of over 650,000 customers. Almost 2 billion detail records were released revealing the search habits over a three month period. Yesterday, they tried to pull the database off the web, but the cat was out of the bag.

Here's a sample of what I could derive from the data:

#479 Looks like a student at Prairie State University who like playing EA Sports Baseball 2006, is a White Sox fan, and was planning going to Ozzfest. When nothing else is going on, he likes to watch Nip/Tuck.

#507 likes to bargain on eBay, is into ghost hunting, currently drives a 2001 Dodge, but plans on getting a Mercedes. He also lives in the Detroit area.

#1021 is unemployed and living in New Jersey. But that didn't get him down because with his new found time, he's going to finally get to see the Sixers.

#1521 like the free porn.

#2708 broke up with her boyfriend and took it pretty hard. She lives in either Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Her ex is probably getting alot of extra "gay" mail, and from what it looks like, he's got 12 CD's coming his way.

#2729 lives in NYC and goes to Lowes & Home Depot alot. Big American Idol fan.

#2914 Lives in Northern Virginia, and needed a stand up MRI through Kaiser Permanente. Was still going to hit Potomac Mills though. Could be having trouble with the thyroid.

#3547 Umm, likes guns.

#5025 Wanted Shakira tickets. Pirates fan, looks like a Merchants Bank, American Express and Pier One customer.

#5085 is looking into a nursing home. Needs to elevate legs, JetBlue customer. Bowls in Long Island.

There's so much more, it's an incredible breach of customer trust. Everything that a person searched for online for three months is out there.

-If you do family history searches, it could be in there mixed in with everything else you've searched.

- Looked for an old boyfriend or girlfriend, social security number, or credit card number? There's some in there.

- If your a teacher, politician, or public servant, your surfing habits could have been released. I've seen plenty of fire station look-ups along with everything else.

- Quite frankly, there's enough info in some of them to get someone "Outed".

This isn't going away any time soon. We may find out there's more data out there, it just hasn't been found.

Google hits the dictionary, now learn from Xerox

The folks at Google shouldn't be so happy about getting added to the dictionary. They now have their work cut out for them in protecting the Google brand and trademark. If the word becomes so widely used, and can be defined in the dictionary, the brand runs the risk of becoming a generic term.

It's why Kellogg's doesn't have control over Raisin Bran and Corn Flakes. It was ruled too generic. So what should Google do about this? Quite frankly, start the process of enforcing their brand usage and take a page from Xerox. At Xerox, you could get shot for calling the process of making a photocopy "Xeroxing". It's easy to find the info, just Google it.

Al Gore's Got A Brand New Bag

Al Gore wants to save the environment, and what better way to do it is to recycle one's own stuff and sell it on eBay. That's right, you can support the Alliance for Climate Protection by bidding up the price of all of Al's leftovers from the premeire of An Inconvenient Truth.

There's a Segway HT signed by Al Gore, Rob Reiner, Sharon Stone, Shaun White, David Duchovny, Daryl Hannah, Elizabeth Shue, Gary Shandling, Laird Hamilton, Lawrence Bender, Davis Guggenheim, Scott Burns, Laurie David, Jeff Skoll, Ricky Strauss, Amanda Bynes, Ed Begley, Albert Brooks, Larry David, Lilly Tomlin, Mike Ferrel, Marg Helgenberger, Stacy Keach, Cheryl Hines, Christine Lahti, Sharon Lawrence, Kathleen Quinlan, Timothy Olyphant, Gabrielle Reece, Radha Mitchell, David Rosenberg, Elizabeth Perkins, Mary-Louise Parker. Since it is signed, you certainly wouldn't use it, so it would be another piece of clutter for display. That's good for the environment!

And that's not all. According to the description, this is the gift bag that Al Gore received at the premeire of his own movie. It's a mishmash of disposable products housed in a hemp bag provided by Hewlett-Packard. Not sure what the Ben & Jerry's small cone gift certificate does to save the environment, but it's probably one of the better things in the bag.

There's also signed overage copies of Al's book, and signed recycled copies of Curb Your Enthusiasm and a Seinfeld Finale script signed by Larry David. His wife Laurie is the producer of An Inconvenient Truth. All proceeds will be paid to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Upon further review, this auction is said to benefit The Alliance for Climate Protection, but the money goes to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. The Alliance for Climate Protection is not a MissionFish charity. The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee registered with MissionFish in 2006, and their mission statement says nothing about being a middle man for an organization that never has any mention of 501(c)3 non-profit status. According to the Alliance For Climate Protection About Us section, they don't claim to be a charity, and look more like a lobbying organization than a charity.

Oh, so that's what 666 means

Yes, today is 06/06/06. Everyone in Hell is partying, or at least using it as an excuse. The market looks like it's celebrating too.

Interestingly, my Catholic Priest had a different take on the significance of 666, the mark of the beast. According to him, it was code for Nero. Writing about Nero at the time, and basically calling him an asshat was frowned upon. So they used the code. Just like when the NSA googles for things they don't like. Asshat is my word, not his.

The other interesting piece to his sermon is that it wasn't 666, it was 616. So you've got 10 days left to repent. He then took confessions. So pass the word, June 16th is doomsday, not.

Another sign of a cooling housing market...

Here's another sign of a buyer's market in housing. When you go to Realtor.com, and you see a banner ad for iTunes. Upon further review, the ad is not for a local realtor as it had been in the past, or for a cash-out refi offer from the company that asks you to punch the monkey. Consumer confidence can't be far behind.

The Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt Baby Picture Business

Now we know one of the reasons Angelina Jolie registered her child's name on the Internet. According to reports this morning, the Brad and Angelina are going to license the baby pictures through Getty Images with the proceeds going to a charity TBD. How smart. Did they lock up all the domain names to sell their baby pictures?

I can see why they would lock up the domain names to start with. Did you know that AngelinaJolie.com is not owned by Angelina. It's a fan site. She has no control over the content, nor her online .com identity.

They also don't own Brangelina.com. That one is a start-up out of Ohio. Wish I thought to lock up that name when I had heard it. No sir, this wasn't going to happen to Angelina again. So she called her lawyers, and among other things like Shiloh's estate planning, requested they lock up the names.

My take is that the lawyers dutifully had a clerk go to Google and look-up how to register a domain. Through the miracle of paid search, the link for Get-Domains-Here.com appears. The clerk pulls out the credit card and registers the top 5 variations of shilohnouveljolie-pitt (.com/.net/.org/.info/.biz).

Subsequently, the clerk also registers shilohnouvel (for when she's married, I guess), shilohnouveljoliepitt (no hyphen, smart!)

The clerk was savvy enough to get shilohjolie, shilohpitt, shilohnouveljolie, and shilohnouvelpitt, so if things hit the skids, even custody can't take away that domain name. I smell a bonus!

There's just one thing, as of this writing, they didn't register the worldwide domains!! OOPS! Domains like shilohjolie.jp are still sitting there. Just the domestic ones are tied up.

The .name address has already showed up on eBay, and it's not me. One out of Germany is selling the .de top level domain. Upon further review, it was bound to happen.