FastSaying

AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo did not violate the privacy of any user by handing over this information. No private data was revealed. Nevertheless, by not pushing back against such a bad request for data, it leaves open the real fear that they might not push back if the US government decided to go on a real fishing expedition in the future. Privacy may not have been lost but trust was.

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Microsoft has complied with our request, as has Yahoo and AOL. We have not analyzed the data yet.
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It's not an issue of privacy but it raises the question that next time it could be.
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Microsoft would do whatever they can to keep AT&T from going to AOL.
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Yahoo has great organization for its service with great relevancy. I think it's going to definitely help build them up for people looking for that kind of content.
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Search engines compile a lot of data on what we search for and much of what we search for is personal. Many people fear that the government wants to do data mining. It'll be interesting to see how much of all this ultimately becomes a political issue.
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