AOL Hiring Its First Chief Privacy Officer

Color me surprised: I was shocked to hear that one of the world's largest ISPs has never had a chief privacy officer, a staple at many high-tech companies and something that AOL needs, considering its long history of privacy gaffes. Heck, even Microsoft has a privacy officer.

Well at least it's doing something about it: In response to the release of 650,000 user records recently, the company is undergoing a massive reorganization (and disbanding the unit responsible for releasing the user information) and naming a privacy officer. No date has been set aside from "soon."

This is good news for AOL users but probably a bit too late to stem the flood of users abandoning the once-pioneering ISP, despite its recent plan to become free for broadband users. (Though in all fairness, AOL has seen a slight jump in subscribers after it launched the free service.)

But maybe I'm wrong. Is AOL on an upswing? Anyone's opinion of the company turning up?