In the wake of America Online's privacy scandal related to the public release of a database containing search data statistics concerning in excess of 658,000 AOL subscribers, Chief Technology Officer Maureen Govern has announced her resignation effective immediately. Govern has been the head of the AOL division responsible with the publication of the 20 million user searches for little under one year. Her position was occupied by John McKinley, president of AOL Technologies. Along with her, two other researchers were fired in relation to the incident.

"I want to thank Maureen for her hard work during her time with AOL, and we wish her all the best as she pursues new opportunities," stated Jonathan Miller, chairman and chief executive of AOL.

"This is not about who gets fired, this about how to protect online privacy and that means not keeping all this data on Internet users," explained Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "The search engine industry and the Internet service providers that offer search engine services need to fundamentally change their business models."

In this regard, Jonathan Miller has been promoting the implementation of a new array of rules to guide the management of AOL subscribers' personal information.