• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 15, 2006

As AOL faces what is arguably the worst public relations crisis in its history--its release of search data for 658,000 members--the company is carrying on as if nothing is amiss. Other than issuing an apology the first business day the news broke, AOL's silence on the debacle has been deafening.

But perhaps the company has good reasons for keeping quiet, such as fear of litigation.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Minute that AOL might be liable under various federal and state laws; possibly, he said, users whose data was revealed could sue AOL for publicly disclosing private facts.

That's the same tort that Washingtonienne blogger-turned-author Jessica Cutler is defending herself against. Cutler posted details of a tryst with Robert Steinbuch, former counsel to Sen. Mike DeWine, on her blog. Although she only identified him by his initials, Steinbuch maintains that the blog--which was linked to by Ana Marie Cox's Wonkette--gave people enough information to recognize him.

AOL "anonymized" users by assigning them numbers, but the data itself provides clues to individual's identities. It only took The New York Times a few days to track down one user, Thelma Arnold, and plaster her name on the front page.

If Jessica Cutler can be hauled into court for her blog entries, AOL has good reason to worry that it, too, faces the prospect of liability over this massive privacy breach.