OT: AOL Releases Search Logs of 657,427 Users

[Meng Cheah]

Words fail me.

/http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive-amounts-of-user-search-data//

*"The utter stupidity of this is staggering.* AOL has released very 
private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL 
username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze 
all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine 
who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal 
names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone 
might type into a search box.

The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on 
their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what 
information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego 
searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine 
them with “buy ecstasy” and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it 
with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity 
theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless."

The apology from AOL:
All –

    This was a screw up, and we’re angry and upset about it. It was an
    innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with
    new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted,
    and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.

    Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these
    accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and
    we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what
    happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing
    never happens again.

    Here was what was mistakenly released:

    * Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three
    month period from March to May.

    * There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with
    those records, but search queries themselves can sometimes include
    such information.

    * According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had
    42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered
    roughly 1.5% of May search users.

    * Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data
    included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted
    through the AOL network over that period.

    * The searches included as part of this data only included U.S.
    searches conducted within the AOL client software.

    We apologize again for the release.

    Andrew Weinstein
    AOL Spokesman


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