Besides legal stuff, it's clear that AOL didn't follow what's SOP procedures for preserving respondent, privacy in the social sciences. They thought they were by not directly releasing user-holder's name and accounts, but were so eager to be helpful that they didn't sanitize the data well. Always a concern, but one routinely dealt. OK, I gotta stop myself or else I go on another rant about computer scientists not knowing any social science -- in this case methods. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 You're invited to visit & contribute to the new version of "Updating Cybertimes: It's Time to Bring Our Culture into Cyberspace" http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________