Posted on 08/08/2006 7:10:37 AM PDT by Panerai
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.
For its part, AOL has apologized for a researcher's disclosure of the massive database and has yanked the file from its Web site. It was too late: The database already had been mirrored.
That database does not include names or user identities. Instead, it lists only a unique ID number for each user. What that means is that it's possible to view the search terms that users of a single account typed in while using AOL Search during a three-month period. (Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search aren't included.)
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Increasingly, it's hard to do a google search on some topics without worrying about something like this happening. I am an amateur writer of science fiction, especially military sf, and sometimes I find it useful to look up techincal specs on military equipment. I imagine these searches probably don't look too good to someone on the outside that doesn't know that I'm writing a book.
Hmmmmmmmm.
My first thought was that these users were recent subscriber cancellations and AOL is engaging in payback.
People can be easily identified from this data. If a person did an ego search on themselves, or if an employer did a search on a potential employee, then that person's search can be linked to himself. There's social security numbers, addresses you name it in this data.
Therefore, it was either stupid or deceptive to open the piece by calling it "one of the year's bigger privacy scandals."
If Disney can keep rights to Mickey's mouse ears for longer than traditional copyrights...why is it that businesses can complile dossiers on individual American citizens and sell these dossiers without paying royalties?.
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
Wrong. This is a huge privacy scandal. Each user got a unique ID number which means that all of his or her searches are linked together. Trust me, I've looked through the information. You can easily tell who certain people are by their searches. People tend to look up themselves and their friends and they look up businesses near them, and people have entered their social security numbers to see if they were posted online. It's all there for the taking. This is a major privacy scandal. AOL deserves to go down for this.
Performance oil filters?
What would the world be like if you had access to all knowledge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider
Oh, well. "S*cks to be them," I guess.
Kentucky seemed to have more than its fair share of represenation in this article.
steak and cheese?
What happened to moose and cheese? Must not be a freeper....
I had a conversation with a college offical and discovered that the campus cops are using MySpace and FaceBook to track down and bust wild parties. Employers are now using these sights to get a better look at a new graduate that doesn't show up on the pretty resume. Be careful what you post and search for....
(I cringe slightly everytime I follow a Clinton-bashing thread. I just can't help myself.)
I noticed "steak and cheese". I also noticed that people who can't spell don't get satisfactory search results.
The article is wrong. AOL search gives Google results.
Also note that this data is similar to what the government wanted from Google and Google declined. (Google feeds a lot of searches, not just AOL)
this is a sort of addiction. There are people who love looking at horrible pictures of mutilated corpses.
That's why several years ago the family of that race-car driver who was killed in a crash fought to keep the autopsy fotos off the public record. I forget his name.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.