Since AOL is apologizing like Bill Clinton at a war crimes museum, it seems time for a recap. AOL has made three recent apologies, none of which actually solved a problem:

Today in "We're very disturbed that AOL released millions of private search records, but here's what we dug up" news, CNET made up for the New York Times' boring old-lady story by digging into the really weird AOL users and guessing where they live.

The New York Times looked at the pile of supposedly private user records AOL had released over the weekend. There was a user obsessed with rape porn. A user researching how to kill his wife. A user searching for kiddie porn. The Times had a tough call — which user's identity was most newsworthy?

Because internet service provider AOL lacks, how do you say, common sense, the company released data for over 20 million web queries for over 657,000 users; the data was so specific that even the Times could ascertain the identity of one user looking for information on dog pee and "60 single men." The search information has since been removed (mirrored here), but while tooling around the AOL database, we were pleased to find the following search queries took AOL users to Gawker:

Readers have responded to our challenge to find the scariest search record exposed by AOL last weekend.

• Newspapers are packaging free CDs with each copy in an attempt to reach younger readers. Because that's what kids are into these days, CDs. This industry deserves to die. [LAT]
• Bloodbath at VNU. Yeah, us either. Apparently they put out Billboard or something. [Mediaweek]
• Cond Nast flack says don't call them a magazine company: "We're a company that provides content." Sure. Related: Gawker Media is not a blog company. We're an organization provides gratuitous use of the word "douchebag." [NYT]
• AOL fuckup. No, not the merger. [Reuters]

Honestly, what other company gets a story on the front of the New York Times tech section just for apologizing for a privacy violation?

AOL, whose research department recently released search records to the public (much like the records they showed the government earlier this year), issued an apology today for the gross violation of its users' privacy.

Days after AOL mistakenly (they say) released search records for half a million customers, bloggers are poring over the scariest-sounding users. (Because decrying corporate privacy invasion is fun, but exploiting that invaded privacy is more fun.)

We're so proud of our big brother Consumerist, Gawker Media's twisted version of Ralph Nader. When AOL proudly released the search records of half a million users this weekend, Consumerist dug down and found the sordid search record of one AOL user.

When AOL announced it will fire 5,000 employees in the next six months, what jobs was it cutting? The Washington Post shares some deets.

AOL, the sickly siamese twin of Time Warner, announced it will fire 5,000 people by the year's end. Those cuts probably focus on the Access department, which announced yesterday that it will give AOL broadband access for free. (Veteran AOL exec Ted Leonsis doesn't mention the layoffs in his chipper forecast for the company.)

• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is taking a trip to the South Pole. In a hydrogen-powered Hummer. With Buzz Aldrin in the driver's seat. And James Cameron filming it — in 3d. [Barrons]

A reader titters like a 15-year-old — let's face it, we're tittering with him — about a certain team name at a certain Internet conglomerate.

Spammers evidently live in caves. Whoever wrote the following phishing message must have missed out on the recent scandal over AOL's notoriously impossible account-cancellation process.

• The Wall Street Journal tries hard to find a contrarian view for Wired editor Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail. Chris Anderson, amused, topples it like a sadist at a domino exhibition. [WSJ and The Long Tail]

I see it's true you've left Time Inc.

Stop worrying about the AOL/Time Warner merger, everyone — Steve Case says he's "sorry". But, according to Reuters, in the same Charlie Rose session that the AOL co-founder apologized for attaching a volatile Internet giant to a previously untoppleable media conglomerate, he said he still believed it was a "good idea."

• AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) pays $5.4 billion for ATI Technologies, which is about 5 times the fake valuation of YouTube and twice the fake valuation of Facebook. [NYT]

• Steve Case, anyone who owned stock, sorry about AOL/Time merger. [Reuters]
• MySpace founder Tom Anderson, 13-year-olds whose parents just don't understand them, sorry about MySpace power outage. [CNET]
• Dude who plagiarized from Office Pirates, anyone who reads Office Pirates, sorry about Office Pirates. [Office Pirates]