
AOL blamed an internal "screw-up" for the embarrassing <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2000225,00.asp?kc=EWNAVEMNL080806EOAD">release of detailed keyword search data</A> for roughly 658,000 anonymized users. AOL's mea culpa comes in the midst of a firestorm of criticism from privacy advocates that the information--which amounts to about 20 million search queries--could be traced back to AOL users. Already struggling to repair its image with users, the data spillage is another black eye for the Internet division of Time Warner.