This email was waiting for me in my inbox this morning.  It reinforces my belief that one of the best things about being part of a sports team in Washington, DC is the fans

Ted:

My nine-year old son, Jake, is a hockey fanatic.  He’s a Squirt A goalie at Montgomery Youth Hockey and follows the Caps religiously.  Last night, we made him go to bed after the 2nd period, which he complained about bitterly.  About three hours later, he got hit with the stomach flu and was in the bathroom – it was ugly.  Literally in between bouts of having his head in the bowl, he asked on question: "Did the Caps win?"  Dad: "Yes, Jake, 4-3 in a shoot out."  Jake: "Nice. Did Ovechkin score again?" Dad: "Yes Jake, in the shoot out."  Answer: "Nice.  Uh-oh …" (Head back in bowl).   With fans like that, you can’t lose!  Great win last night.    Best regards, (name withheld)

You may have seem some of the media coverage about subpoenas that the Department of Justice sent to Google and other major Internet search companies last fall. 

 Because some of the initial media reports indicated that AOL might have complied with that subpoena, I want to set the record straight.  To be clear, AOL did not give the Department of Justice what it asked for in its subpoena.  We instead provided them with a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms.  That list did not include actual search results nor any other information about who conducted the search or when or where it took place. 

That same type of anonymous search data is commonly used by AOL and every other major search engine for features like our "Hot Searches" box and "top searches" features, and there are absolutely no privacy implications with sharing it.  Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch has actually created a whole page of all of the public places you can find that same type of data.  What People Search For – Most Popular Keywords   In summary, it’s not hard to find, and it’s not private.

We deeply value our users’ privacy, and we didn’t — and wouldn’t — comply with a subpoena that demanded that type of broad and private information about them. 

Every year millions of Americans make a New Year’s resolution to lose a few pounds.  This year, AOL and Good Morning America have teamed up to make it just a little bit easier for everyone to keep that resolution with "America Takes it Off," a campaign that offers diet and exercise tips, support and advice from experts and other members of the online community.  So far, the campaign has been a tremendous success.  Over 100,000 people have signed up and pledged to lose over 4 million pounds.  To put that in perspective, in weight (not calories), that works out to more than 400 million twinkies, or more than ten million large bags of potato chips.  It is also a great example of the power the internet has to bring people together and to improve their lives.

Check out this video of a Great American Workout session held in Times Square.