On August 4, 2006, AOL released a compressed text file on one of its websites containing twenty million search keywords for over 650,000 users over a 3-month period, intended for research purposes. AOL pulled the file from public access by the 7th, but not before it had been mirrored, P2P-shared and seeded via BitTorrent. News filtered down to the blogosphere and popular tech sites such as Digg and Wired News. August 4 is the 216th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (217th in leap years), with 149 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Screenshot of AOL.com AOL LLC (formerly America Online, Inc) is an American online service provider, bulletin board system, and media company operated by Time Warner. ... In computer science, a keyword is an identifier which indicates a specific command. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Blogosphere is the collective term encompassing all blogs as a community or social network. ... Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a variety of other categories such as politics and videos. ... Wired News, online at Wired. ...

While none of the records on the file are personally identifiable per se, certain keywords contain personally identifiable information by means of the user typing in their own name (ego-searching), as well as their address, social security number or by other means. Each user is identified on this list by a unique sequential key, which enables the compilation of a user's search history. ^[1] In fact, in a test of whether it was possible to do so, the New York Times was able to locate several individuals from the released, and anonymized search records by cross referencing them with phonebooks or other public records. ^[2] Consequently, the ethical implications of using this data for research are under debate. ^{[3] [4]} In information security and privacy, personally identifiable information or personally identifying information (PII) is any piece of information which can potentially be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Sample United States Social Security Card In the United States, a Social Security number (or SSN) is a 9 digit number issued to citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2) of the Social Security Act, codified as . ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

AOL acknowledged it was a mistake and removed the data, although the files can still be downloaded from mirror sites.^[5] Additionally, several searchable databases of the report also exist on the internet.^[6]

Although the searchers were only identified by a numeric ID, the New York Times successfully discovered the identity of several searchers, and with her permission, exposed search number 4417749 as Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old Georgian widow. This privacy breach was widely reported, and led to the resignation of AOL's CTO, Maureen Govern on August 21, 2006. The media quoted an insider as saying that two employees had been fired: the researcher who released the data, and his immediate supervisor, who reported to Govern.^{[7] [8]} Maureen Govern was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at AOL at the time of their search data release. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

In September 2006 a class action lawsuit was filed against AOL in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. "The lawsuit accuses AOL of violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and of fraudulent and deceptive business practices, among other claims, and seeks at least $5,000 for every person whose search data was exposed." ^[9] The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. ...

In January 2007, Business 2.0 Magazine on CNNMoney ranked the release of the search data #57 in a segment called "101 Dumbest Moments in Business."^[10]

References

1. ^ Michael Arrington. "AOL proudly releases massive amounts of user search data", TechCrunch, 2006-08-06. Retrieved on 2006-08-07.
2. ^ "A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749", The New York Times, 2006-08-09. (Sign in or subscription required.)
3. ^ Katie Hafner. "Tempting Data, Privacy Concerns; Researchers Yearn To Use AOL Logs, But They Hesitate", The New York Times, 2006-08-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
4. ^ Nate Anderson. "The ethics of using AOL search data", Ars Technica, 2006-08-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
5. ^ http://news.com.com/AOL+apologizes+for+release+of+user+search+data/2100-1030_3-6102793.html?tag=nefd.top
6. ^ http://sergiorebelo.com/twodotfive/?page_id=25
7. ^ Li, Kenneth. "AOL chief technology officer resigns: sources", Reuters, 2006-08-21.
8. ^ http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/22/business/aol.php
9. ^ http://news.com.com/2061-10803_3-6119218.html
10. ^ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/101dumbest/2007/full_list/index.html

TechCrunch is a blog about Web 2. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... August 7 is the 219th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (220th in leap years), with 146 days remaining. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ... Reuters Group plc (LSE: RTR and NASDAQ: RTRSY); pron. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

External links

• http://www.gregsadetsky.com/aol-data/ - List of sites where the complete data can be downloaded.
• http://www.aolstalker.com/ - Search keywords and users. Tag users and search tags, also features funniest users list.
• http://www.aolsearchlogs.com - A website to search the logs
• http://www.aolpsycho.com - A website to discuss particular AOL users and their search logs
• A Picture of Search, InfoScale '06 - A published paper based in part on this search data.