AOL Releases User Search data for "Research"

[Dave I]

The wonderful folks at AOL have released the search data for 657,426 Users over a 3 month period. It was supposed to be for researchers only, however it was made public. To protect users privacy they have replaced user id's with number ID that should make the user anonymous. However at least one person has been identified.

AOL has removed the data and issued an apology, which I can't find right now, and stated no personal data has been exposed. However, the data has already been mirrored. Warning, if you download it extracts to over 2GB of text. Also, contrary to their claims, searching through the data will reveal names, addresses, credit card numbers, SS#, etc.

Nothing you do on the internet is private!

Now here is where the fun begins. Someone loaded all the data into a DB and made a searchable webpage (NSFW Warning. Search results can contain censored/dirty words.). Some of the results range from humorous to downright disturbing and depressing. Remember these are the search terms these specific users used on AOL's search, which is powered by Google BTW.

Here my submission for AOL psycho of the day.

NSFW Warning. Search results contain censored/dirty words.

http://www.aolstalker.com/user.php?uid=1879967