AOL Search Records - Background
The AOL search records debacle released over 500K private search records on the Web in the name of research. These records were almost instantly taken down again, but not before many mirror sites got a hold of them. Now, what are the lessons we've learned from the AOL search records fiasco? Here are a few I've come up with:
Privacy Protection
These records are a shining example of why you need to guard your privacy on the Web. Two resources to help you:
- Anonymous Surfing 101: Are you concerned about privacy on the Web? Then anonymous surfing, the ability to surf the Web without being tracked, is for you. Here are some frequently asked questions about anonymous Web surfing.
- Ten Ways To Keep Your Search History Private: Now, most of us have no need to hide our search history, but there's no harm in more cautious Web surfing. Here are a few ways you can keep your searching history private.
Know Your Rights
Yes, reading a privacy policy is nobody's idea of fun, but it might be a good idea to at least skim the main points. You can read excerpts and summaries from search engines' privacy policy in my article titled
What is Your Right to Privacy with Search Engines?.
You Are Not Anonymous
Every move you make on the Web is going to be recorded somehow, and somewhere. Once you see the trail that some of these AOL searchers left, it will definitely inspire you to be more circumspect, or at least use search methods that will not compromise your privacy integrity.
Search Logs
One thing I haven't noticed in this whole mess is the fact that AOL's search is actually powered by Google (read my
AOL Search article that states this in the first paragraph), so these search logs are actually...wait for it....Google's, technically.
All search engines log your searches, queries, web history, etc.
All browsers do this as well. If you have an ISP, such as Comcast or Earthlink, your search history is logged by them as well. All this to say, there's
no need to be paranoid, but more of us should think about guarding our privacy.
Your Information Is Out There
Even though the amount of data released in these searches is a lot, try Googling yourself. You might be really surprised at what you find. Even better, go to
Zabasearch and look yourself up. While Zabasearch doesn't have anything in its database that's not publicly accessible, it's all in one place so you can see just how much information there is out there about you.You can avoid some of this by ditching registrations for sites; read my article titled
Avoid Annoying Registration with BugmeNot to find out more.
The Data Is Valuable
Search engine researchers - people who really get under the hood, so to speak, and make search engines better - have surprisingly limited access to the inner workings of said search engines. This data is an invaluable tool in the hands of ethical people who want to make the search experience better. So, from that point of view, AOL actually did a good thing to release these search records...however, they should have been anesthetized prior to their release.
AOL Search Records - Bottom Line
The data is out there, and while individual user names have been scrubbed, it is still relatively simple to piece together a record of searches tied to one user ID - and if that person has entered in any personally identifying information, well, I'll let you come to your own conclusion. Hopefully we've learned a few things from this; mostly, that our privacy should be guarded very carefully.
