AOL recently announced the appointment of their first Chief Privacy Officer. Jules Polonetsky, CIPP, will lead all of AOL's activities related to privacy policies and procedures. He and his team will formulate and enforce standards for a wide range of consumer issues, including privacy, ad policy, accessibility, content guidelines, community practices, child safety and general online security. To support AOL's commitment to consumers and privacy, this team will also launch cross-corporate education and communications initiatives.

Polonetsky, a Board Member of the IAPP, joined AOL in 2002 from DoubleClick as their Chief Privacy Officer. He previously served as the New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner for Mayor Rudolph Guiliani.

Shred-A-Thon Days Tackle ID Theft for Westchester Residents
Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano announced the launch of a mobile shredder machine to help residents combat identity theft. Allocated with recycling funds, the $60,000 shred-mobile has capacity to shred 150 pages at one time and hold up to one ton of shredded paper.

County spokeswoman Susan Tolchin said, "[the truck] is raising public awareness and physically doing something to help our residents prevent their identities from being stolen. We don't want Westchester residents to have to go through the heartache, misery, aggravation and financial loss of having their identity stolen."

This not-for-profit initiative is for residents only at household chemical clean-up day events held throughout the county and will not be offered to businesses. Residents' personal papers will be shredded on-the-spot and recycled.