from www.aolnews.com -If getting outed for illegal downloads is bad, then getting outed for illegally downloading porn has to be worse.

That’s what happened to thousands of Sky Broadband customers in England, whose names have been published online alongside titles of adult videos they allegedly shared illegally.

This Internet privacy breach centers on the law firm ACS:Law, which tracks down Web users suspected of sharing copyrighted material and orders them to pay fines or face trial.

When ACS:Law targeted the popular file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, it came under fire from the site and the /b/ board on the image-sharing site 4chan — a forum with a long history of going after its perceived enemies, which range from 11-year-old girls and YouTube to the Motion Picture Association of America and animal abusers.

In a coordinated attack dubbed “Operation Payback Is a Bitch,” Internet users infiltrated the ACS:Law website in retaliation for the firm’s anti-file-sharing efforts.

The attack resulted in a leak of an unencrypted Excel document containing the names of 5,300 individuals and the porn they’re accused of sharing, as well as confidential ACS:Law e-mails revealing how much money the firm makes from accused file sharers, the BBC reports.

The data was then posted on The Pirate Bay, according to the Daily Mail.

“We were the subject of a criminal attack to our systems. The business has and remains intact and is continuing to trade,” said Andrew Crossley of ACS:Law, who noted that the names leaked online are the owners of accounts linked to file sharing — not necessarily the individuals responsible for downloading or sharing the pornography.

English authorities say they are looking into the attack and will contact ACS:Law, having stated that any “organization processing personal data must ensure that it is kept safe and secure.”

Internet privacy watchdogs say there’s very little that web users can do to keep their private data from going public.

“It’s so easy for your personal information to get leaked and there are so few protections in place to give you the power to keep it offline,” said Justin Brookman, a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

“That’s one of the main reasons we’ve been pressing so hard for a privacy law in the United States.”

It’s unclear if the leaked names and porn titles will be found to violate England’s Data Protection Act.

If a similar incident occurred in the United States, it would likely be up to the Federal Trade Commission to determine if it “would be an unfair business practice to store such personal and private business information in such a bad way,” said Brookman.

“We have really weak privacy laws,” he said. “There absolutely needs to be a law in place to protect consumers.”