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AOL releases search data, people work out who did the searching

AOL in a fit of stupidity released to the general public the data on 65000 people's searches of its search engine.

The names of the people who did the searching was erased and instead replaced with numbers.

As a result this information is now starting to reveal the real people behind the searches by stringing together the numbers of searches involving addresses, social security numbers, email addresses etc.

Its just one big rubbish heap with people rooting around finding jems...

much more on the site ...

News.com

AOL's publication of the search histories of more than 650,000 of its users has yielded more than just one of the year's bigger privacy scandals.

The 21 million search queries also have exposed an innumerable number of life stories ranging from the mundane to the illicit and bizarre.

From that massive list of search terms, for instance, it's possible to guess that AOL user 710794 is an overweight golfer, owner of a 1986 Porsche 944 and 1998 Cadillac SLS, and a fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers Men's Basketball team. The same user, 710794, is interested in the Cherokee County School District in Canton, Ga., and has looked up the Suwanee Sports Academy in Suwanee, Ga., which caters to local youth, and the Youth Basketball of America's Georgia affiliate.

That's pretty normal. What's not is that user 710794 also regularly searches for "lolitas," a term commonly used to describe photographs and videos of minors who are nude or engaged in sexual acts.

The following are a series of excerpts compiled by CNET News.com from the AOL search logs, with each user's search terms included in chronological order.

AOL user 311045 apparently owns a Scion XB automobile in need of new brake pads that is in the process of being upgraded with performance oil filters. User 311045, possibly a Florida resident, is preoccupied with another topic as well:
how to change brake pads on scion xb
2005 us open cup florida state champions
how to get revenge on a ex
how to get revenge on a ex girlfriend
how to get revenge on a friend who f---ed you over
replacement bumper for scion xb
florida department of law enforcement
crime stoppers florida

By netchicken: posted on 9-8-2006

First person named, searcher #4417749
More on the site...

The sort of celebrity status that you could sue for I imagine...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006...

Buried in a list of 20 million Web search queries collected by AOL and recently released on the Internet is user No. 4417749. The number was assigned by the company to protect the searcher’s anonymity, but it was not much of a shield.

No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from “numb fingers” to “60 single men” to “dog that urinates on everything.”

And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for “landscapers in Lilburn, Ga,” several people with the last name Arnold and “homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia.”

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs. “Those are my searches,” she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/08/08/business/09aol.jpg

By netchicken: posted on 9-8-2006

Here is a website allowing people access to the database

http://dontdelete.com/

By netchicken: posted on 10-8-2006

Mein Gott !! Probably they wanted to do something like Google did and reveal statistics about their user base but were too lazy to take the effort. I wonder why even after this broke AOL hasnt taken any serious efforts to curb this breach of privacy ? Its almost as if they are perpetuating this.

By IAF: posted on 10-8-2006