NYT Article: A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749
I’m shocked by this article about AOL’s query logs. Wow.
Not only were the queries published, but a user ID also?! A reporter tracked down an individual searcher through her queries.
Whoa.
UPDATE 8/17/06: To clarify, AOL did publish the randomly assigned user IDs. Thereferore the queries are bundled together by user. There are sites online right now (you’ll have to find them yourself) that let you browse and search the queries by random user IDs.
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My understanding is that AOL didn’t publish her user ID, but that her identity was uncovered by a journalist showing that AOL’s release of data, though it contained no direct user identifying data, was “reverse engineerable” to that end.
Comment by abram — 8/9/2006 @ 10:43 pm
That would make so much more sense. Yet, there must’ve been some kind of identifying information that linked multiple queries to a single user.
Comment by Chris — 8/9/2006 @ 11:55 pm
It’s not rocket science. I’m sure that with a bit of sleuthing, interested parties could uncover many more intriguing tidbits.
Comment by greg — 8/14/2006 @ 7:00 pm