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Aol

Legacy ad platform. Low liability exposure limited to consent bypass. Minimal revenue impact.

42 IOCs37 detections100% pre-consent30 sites
70
Vendor Risk Score

How This Briefing Works

This report opens with key findings, then maps the gaps between what Aol discloses and what BLACKOUT observed at runtime. From there: what it means for your organization, what to do about it, and the detection data and evidence underneath.

Key Findings

Key Findings

37 detections across 30 sites100% pre-consent activity
CRITICAL

Pre-Consent Activity

Aol was observed loading and executing before user consent was obtained on 100% of sites where it was detected.

GDPRePrivacy
Disclosure Gaps

Claims vs. Observed Behavior

1 gaps

pending

UNKNOWN
They Claim

“Requires claims extraction via CDT”

Observed Behavior

Live website analysis pending

Customer Impact

What This Means For You

For legal: Pre-consent cookie execution creates GDPR liability despite legacy platform status. Limited competitive intelligence value due to minimal active data collection and platform decline.
Recommended Actions

What To Do About It

Role-specific actions based on observed behavior

If You Use Aol

  • →Require AOL cookies to execute post-consent only
  • →Consider migration to modern ad platforms with privacy-first architecture
  • →Add legacy ad platform disclosure to privacy policy

If You're Evaluating Aol

  • →Review contract termination provisions for legacy platforms
  • →Assess migration cost vs. ongoing GDPR liability exposure

Negotiation Leverage

  • →Pre-consent cookie execution violates ePrivacy Directive - require technical consent controls or platform migration
  • →Legacy platform status does not exempt from GDPR compliance - violations remain despite minimal active development
  • →Limited competitive intelligence risk due to platform decline and minimal data sharing
Runtime Detections

Runtime Detections

1 BTI-C CODES

BLACKOUT observed this vendor's JavaScript executing in a live browser and classified each hostile behavior using our BTI-C (Behavioral Threat Intelligence — Capability) taxonomy. These are not theoretical risks — each code below was triggered by something we watched this vendor's code actually do.

BTI-C09Consent Bypass

Ignoring CMP signals

Impact: Executes advertising cookies before consent collection for legacy ad delivery infrastructure. Violates ePrivacy Directive cookie consent requirements.

IOC Manifest

IOC Manifest

22 INDICATORS

Indicators of compromise across 4 categories. Use for detection rules, CSP policies, or Pi-hole blocklists.

EXFIL
*www.aol.com/lib/metro/g/myy/rapidworker_1_2_0.0.2.js*
Data collection endpoint
EXFIL
www.aol.com/lib/metro/g/myy/rapidworker_1_2_0.0.2.js
Auto-extracted from scan
Ecosystem

Ecosystem & Supply Chain

Legacy ad infrastructure primarily maintained for backward compatibility. Limited active integrations. Common co-deployments: Legacy publisher sites, older CMS platforms, grandfathered ad contracts.
Loads (12)
DoubleclickLiveintent Id ExchangeTaboolaLiveintent AdvertisingRtbhouseCriteoPubmaticSeedtagGumgumSonobi33acrossShopping Google
Evidence

Evidence Artifacts

Artifacts collected during analysis, available with evidence-tier access.

HAR Capture

Complete network capture with all requests and responses

IOC Manifest

42 detection signatures across scripts, domains, cookies, and network endpoints

Vendor Details