Yet Another Data Broker? AOL Lifestream.

Published: 2011-01-12
Last Updated: 2011-01-12 18:16:13 UTC
by Richard Porter (Version: 1)
3 comment(s)

Lifestream? Yet another Aggregated Personal Data Feed?

We have a report from a reader that AOL Lifestream service seems to have data from .Mac and or Mobile Me accounts. After some checking, my .Mac feed has some stream information in it as well.

You have an account created for you if you have a .Mac or MobileMe account. This seems to be an automated process. For me, it only had my twitter feed but it is a service that I did not ask for.

You can either log into your account with your .Mac credentials or you can find your feed with http : // lifestream dot aol dot com / stream / username@mac.com

If you enter into account -> Settings you can restrict this feed however I did not find a place to delete the account.

Then click on the AOL Lifestream pull down menu and select which setting you desire. In my case I selected No one - Private.

And in the interest of being thorough, you can adjust your "Who can comment" settings. In this case I selected "Only you"..

Thanks Thomas for the report on this. There is a feedback button that you can submit if you want to comment to AOL Lifestream.

 

Richard Porter

--- ISC Handler on Duty

3 comment(s)

Comments

Apparently the .mac.com and .me.com accounts are separate. I adjusted my .mac.com account and then logged in using .me.com and had to adjust that one too.
This is very disturbing. I don't understand how AOL can get away with impersonating someone. That's what it is. I didn't personally open a LifeStream account and didn't direct anyone to do it for me. AOL just did it. Granted, no Twitter or any other social tool was set up, but the point is that this type of stuff shouldn't be done by anyone other than the consumer, if they want to subscribe. I sent them a nasty-gram and asked them to close the account (I will follow up with their progress in canceling).
This diary entry should emphasize that *all* AIM accounts have a LifeStream account as well, not just .Mac.

I was quite surprised to see my status messages posted in public on LifeStream without my knowledge. Followed the steps to make them private.

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