Corvillus

In case you didn’t know already, AOL released a large portion of their search logs to the public. These logs not only contained the searches themselves, but also a unique ID that AOL tracks across multiple searches. Yesterday the first AOL search ID was linked to 62 year old Thelma Arnold via the search queries she made. The subjects of these queries included homes and landscaping in her area, information on ailments her friends suffer from, and information about her dog’s ailments. I’m glad I haven’t ever used AOL search, having this kind of information open to the general public is scary. It’s one thing to have this kind of information available internally (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft probably all do this), but to release it to anyone outside of the organization is a terrible blow to privacy. I wonder what kind of legal action, if any, AOL will face as a result of this debacle.

Read More: A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749 - New York Times [via TechCrunch]