AOL Data Scandal Turned Into A Play

I don't know how many remember this, but back in 2006 AOL got into some trouble over a research project they were doing regarding keywords that people use in their search engines. The problem was that while they were doing their research the data file containing this information was released to the general public. The users were identified by numbers, but some could be identified by name if they tried searching for their own name.

One user in particular, User 927, was highlighted by The Consumerist website. If you go to the log, you notice that it starts out innocent enough, with the guy searching for the healing time for a broken leg, then as you get further in to it his interest in porn gets more and more depraved.

Well, someone decided to turn that person's weblog into a play, appropriately titled "User 927."

User 927, "a thriller about cyberstalking, search engines, and the way information is obtained, manipulated, and released in our wired world," is getting a staged reading this Wednesday at LAByrinth Theater Co. in New York...

"Leah and her 14-year-old daughter Deena have fled the big city for rural Indiana to make a new, safer life for themselves. Then Deena disappears, and technophobe mom must plug back in to seek the culprit. Will the person she's hunting be found online, or a bike ride away? A work of fiction based on one very real and disturbing search log."

The company producing the play also produced the hit Off-Off Broadway and Off-Broadway show, "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant."