I thought this was AOL standard operating procedure

US Charges AOL worker sold customer list for spam.

And here's more on the story from The Smoking Gun.

I knew that AOL was selling email addresses for spam long ago. I created a screenname on my folks' AOL account as that was the only way I had of getting on the internet while on the road. I never used the e-mail account to communicate with anyone - and I sure as hell didn't use it to sign up for any subscriptions or mailing lists.

But lo and behold, the mailbox started filling up with spam nonetheless. I'm sure some of them were spammers using random-guess-type screennames, but I'm sure quite a few of them were not. I just assumed that AOL sold their subscriber lists as standard practice. They're not known historically as being ethically above such a thing, so it made sense.

Now that it turns out that there were people on the inside selling subscriber lists under the radar, I guess I should give AOL a break.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. They still suck.