AOL may be in breach of federal privacy law. The company inadvertently released the search activity of nearly 650,000 AOL users in an effort to provide data for search researchers. Nearly 20 million Web searches were captured. While users can only be identified by numbers, the accidental release of this information is a massive breach of consumer privacy. Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston says publication of the search logs is a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. If so, that law carries minimum statutory damages of $1,000 per person, which totals $658 million minimum. "This is a massive …

Many felt that YouTube CEO Chad Hurley's stirring performance at Herb Allen's annual Sun Valley media conference signaled that his company would soon be acquired by the bigger fish circling the pond at the media mogul-fest. Of course, many believe it will be Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., thereby bringing together MySpace and its 80 percent share of the social networking with YouTube's 60 percent share of the online video market. But Robert Young of GigaOM says no way. At $1 billion, YouTube has priced itself out of Murdoch's bargain-hunting range. Young, speaking from his experience of selling Delphi to …

Maybe it's because everyone loves the iPod. It's interesting that Apple Computer's stock-option grant scandal, which Forbes says is potentially Enron-big, has had little, if any effect on the company's stock price. On June 29, Steve Jobs said an internal investigation uncovered irregularities in the reporting of backdated stock options. The stock fell 2.9 percent, then recovered in July, to close at $69.59 on Aug 3. The next day, Apple said it would "likely" need to restate its financial results as far back as 2002, and would not be able to report its third-quarter earnings as scheduled. Despite being plastered …

It's almost charming how little our legislators know about the topics they're writing into law. In recent memory, there is no greater example of this than Ted Stevens, Alaska's 82-year-old Republican Senator. In late June, he tried to explain the inner workings of the Internet during a speech against Net neutrality--the idea that all Web traffic, no matter how much bandwidth it requires, should be treated equally. "The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck," Stevens snapped. "It's a series of tubes!" As soon as he delivered his speech, MP3's of Stevens' performance were …

The Financial Times reports that MTV parent Viacom is considering a bid for social networking site Bebo. This, of course, would mark the company's latest attempt to nip at the heels of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., which beat out Sumner Redstone and company last year in a bidding war for MySpace parent Intermix. The success of that acquisition has prompted Viacom and other major media rivals to reexamine the value of sites that command so much of a young user's Web time. Viacom's interest in the young social network comes a day after the media conglomerate announced a ground-breaking …

Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent, created a file-sharing tool that rankles organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America. Cohen, 30, has Asperger's Syndrome--a form of autism that affects social skill, which means he has to practice making eye contact or detecting sarcasm, things that come easily to most people. But he's also a software genius, reports The San Francisco Chronicle, who is trying to turn his file-sharing software into a legitimate business. BitTorrent software sends and receives pieces of large files across a vast network of users, so it takes far less time to download big files. According …

The new Business Week cover about the founder of Digg.com leaves a lot uncovered, according to TechDirt. As much as we love charming tales about pimple-faced high school kids who created the next billion-dollar Web startup in less than 12 months, you can't call any old startup the next YouTube or MySpace. The cover in question features Digg founder Kevin Rose, looking very much the teenager. It reads: "How This Kid Made $60 million in 18 Months"--as if his company had already been sold. Actually, the article never mentions the $60 million figure again. It says that Digg breaks even …

A few weeks after AOL Video's re-launch, Business Week takes a fresh look at the service that now has more than 45 video-on-demand channels, with home pages that describe the content and showcase the most popular clips and user reviews. It has news clips from ABC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, Reuters and the Weather Channel, as well as original content from TBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Extra! The new site merges user-generated and professional content seamlessly, the review says. But its biggest flaw is too much advertising--the kind you can't skip. "The catch is commercials, and lots of …

Google may be getting better at the whole Web video thing, writes The New York Times. That followed the announcement of a deal with Viacom that lets AdSense publishers distribute clips from programs like "Laguna Beach" and "SpongeBob SquarePants." Google is getting better at dealing with the producers of news and entertainment, the people who once complained that Google used their content without appropriate consent. The AdSense test, which starts at the end of the month, allows publishers to redistribute content and then collect revenue from the video ads Google sells. It's also a clever deal for Viacom, the Times …

The security problems posed by wireless networking are greater than the experts once feared. Chip maker Intel Corp. released new information about security vulnerabilities in its Centrino wireless software. Security researchers demonstrated how they could exploit these flaws to take over a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop "with startling ease." On Aug. 1, Intel issued a warning about three flaws, including one that would enable an attacker to take remote control of a computer over the air. On the next day, two researchers demonstrated such an attack at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The researchers decided against doing a live …