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| AOL's Big Privacy Blunder |
| ISP stuns its users and bloggers by making sensitive query data available to the general public |
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Jason Hahn (woowhee)  |
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Published 2006-08-07 17:30 (KST) |
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In an inexplicably foolish and potentially devastating move, America Online (AOL) released massive amounts of private data to the whole world. Sometime on Sunday it was discovered that AOL made 20 million search queries made by 650,000 of its users, along with additional information related to these queries, available to the public for download on one of its pages, which has since been taken down.
Though news sources have been virtually mute on the event so far, blogs have been quickly picking up on the news and reacting strongly. The word "boycott" has been associated with AOL in many of these posts.
The private data contains searches from these 650,000 AOL users over the course of three months (March through May) in 2006. It also includes indications of whether or not a user actually clicked on a search result, what the result was, and what rank the result held on the search results page.
Michael Arrington, the man behind the popular blog TechCrunch, says"AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the ability to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box." He elaborates on the potential consequences of this data being made available to the public by saying,"The most serious problem is the fact that many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with 'buy ecstasy' and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless." The reason behind this seemingly absentminded move seems to be that AOL was making this information available to researchers in order to provide them with data that would give them the opportunity to be cited as the source, though there are clearly smarter ways to go about this. Before downloading the files containing the sensitive information, "Please reference the following publication when using this collection" was the request made by AOL to the downloader.
AOL did make a disclaimer: "This collection is distributed for non-commercial research use only. Any application of this collection for commercial purposes is STRICTLY PROHIBITED." But it's obvious that this does not justify or excuse them for such an unconscionable lack of judgment.
The implications of this event are clear enough. Anyone involved with online affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click ads will find it easy to use this private information to their advantage. AOL users are sure to find many reasons to cancel their accounts and file for retribution, especially if fears of identity theft are realized. The list of the potential mess this data release could make goes on and on.
Google will surely feel some of the consequences of this calamity, partly because AOL's search engine is essentially Google's search engine repackaged. As a result of this, Google will find more spam sites (including "splogs," a word used to describe sites made for the sole purpose of making money from online ads) to fight.
Although Google has recently made strides in combating these sites with alterations to its AdWords practices, AOL's release of this search query data presents sploggers with a boon of information concerning popular search terms on Google. Sploggers can take this and target these specific keywords with sites that offer very little helpful or relevant information, but are littered with Google AdSense ads that are customized to avoid looking like ads. Unsuspecting visitors to these sites could be tricked into clicking on these ads, which become easy sources of revenue for sploggers.
The fact that AOL has taken down the page does absolutely nothing to stop the bleeding. The information in question has already been downloaded many times over, and is mirrored on a handful of sites that can be easily found online, especially by those motivated by a desire to make money off of the opportunity.
Google fought successfully against providing the U.S. Department of Justice with search queries, which was information that did not even connect data with specific individuals. Microsoft has made it clear that they are looking to help develop research in this field by providing select researchers with query data, though without any information that could be linked to any users.
AOL seems to have nullified any advances that the search engine industry has made in withholding query logs from the government by making this sensitive information available not just to the government, but to the general public, who did not even demand that this information be given to them. For those in the business of taking advantage of this kind of information, this event is the equivalent of an early Christmas.
There are sure to be a number of outcries, angry rants, and cancellations in the coming days. This comes at an inopportune time for AOL, which has made headlines for its plans to change its faltering business model. Recent news indicated that AOL was planning to change the face of its subscription-based business by making many of its products free to the general public.
It comes as an unpleasant surprise to all that sensitive search query data was part of that plan as well.
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©2006 OhmyNews
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