When AOL completely dropped the ball, and released the search data from 658,000 of its users last month, the groundwork was laid for a class action. The only question left to be answered was how much would the violation of its customers' data cost. If the lawsuit filed by three AOL customers on behalf of the customers is successful in its current state, the total will soar past $658 million.

The lawsuit is asking for damages of at least $1,000 per user, and $4,000 per user in California. While this amount isn't earth-shattering for the users who were affected, for AOL it would be quite a big deal. More importantly, the lawsuit is asking for wholesale changes in the way AOL handles search data. Namely, they want to stop AOL from collecting and storing search data at all. The lawsuit is also asking that the released data be removed from search results, making it harder to find. This measure seems like too little too late, but the fact that the lawsuit is addressing the larger problem and not purely looking for a monetary reward and punishment for AOL is a good sign. — Brian Ward

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