[Air-l] AOL Releases Search Logs from 500,000 Users

[Jennifer Stromer-Galley]

The New York Times has an article online today about the AOL release of data.
You can find the article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html. (NyTimes.com requires
registration).

The article highlights one woman, a 60 year old from Georgia, whose searches
were captured in the three month period. Much is revealed about her in her
search queries . . . It also discusses the release of the data. AOL
spokespeople are saying they did not authorize the release - that an employee
acted hastily and without authorization to release it. The article also
reports that programmers have set up Web sites to let people search the data
in the database, which is leading people to find shocking or amusing search
histories.

Eeeek.

Best,
~Jenny



-- 
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication, SS 340
University at Albany, SUNY
1400 Washington Ave.
Albany, NY 12222
518-442-4873
jstromer at albany.edu
http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer