A software engineer for America Online stole the Internet provider's customer list � some 92 million names � and sold it to an on-line marketer, setting off a torrent of unsolicited commercial e-mail commonly known as spam, federal authorities said today.
You know, I'd say this wasn't the first time this happened. I used to have a volunteer job on AOL answering mail questions, and they were just so drag-assy about spam blocking, like it just wasn't that big a deal. And meanwhile, I was getting more spam than anything on my AOL account, I still have an AOL account, which readers can figure out if they sits and haves a good think. And I read it behind AOL Classic's own somewhat not-sucky spam filters, and then behind AOL Communicator's somewhat more robust and trainable filters, and THEN behind a Bayesian filter thing-doodad David has running. And I STILL get spam on the AOL account… most days, it's all that's in my inbox. Although I will say that traffic on the Highlander mailing list HIGHLA-L has picked up again. Dear old Amanda, people love to talk (and argue) about her. It's nice to see something other than mystery meat in the old inbox of a morning.