MichaelZimmer.org

Declan McCullagh at CNet has posted many more, often disturbing, profiles of users gleaned from the AOL search data leak. Examples include: Based on the number of local searches, AOL user 1515830 appears to be a resident of [personal information removed]. On March 1, user 1515830 was trying to find the amount of calories in [...]

It is not that hard to identity actual users from the “anonymous” search data released by AOL. The New York Times quickly found user No. 4417749: 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 [...]

Might AOL’s release of the logs of nearly 20 million web searches documenting three months of activity by 650,000 AOL users serve to raise awareness of the privacy concerns with web search surveillance (that I’ve been writing about forever)? Seth Finkelstein hopes so, but also warns that the potential abuse of the released data by [...]

AOL has issued an apology for releasing the logs of nearly 20 million web searches documenting three months of activity by 650,000 AOL users: “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 [...]

Have you ever searched for your social security number to see if it happened to be posted online somewhere? Have you searched for it along with your name? Many do, and it has apparently been confirmed that the massive database of search history AOL released does include searches with users’ social security numbers. From the [...]

[I've pasted this in its entirety from TechCrunch - unbelievable] AOL must have missed the uproar over the DOJ’s demand for “anonymized” search data last year that caused all sorts of pain for Microsoft and Google. That’s the only way to explain their release of data that includes 20 million web queries from 650,000 AOL [...]