http://consumerist.com/consumer/privacy/aol-releases-500000-user-search-records-192488.php
AOL Releases 500,000+ User Search Records
Internets are aflame overAOL 's publication of the search queries for 650,000+ users . This means that it shows what you typed into the AOL search engine, be it "hardball" or "hardcore."
Some people consider it a privacy invasion, even though the user id's are anonymized. 13SpiceyKandygrrl becomes User 10004.
You can download the full data set at one of the many working mirrors here. (A little bird tells us that a more user-friendly way to look the might be showing up soon...)
The point of the release seems to be to earn cred with data-mining orgs or any other research endeavor, or simply to put up the OPEN sign on the user info shop.
We're going to use it for our science fair project this year. Watch out, electric potato!
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Think about the privacy problems this could cause. Even though they anonymize user ids imagine how many times you've done a search for yourself in google or you've searched for information about your high school or something.
It's funny reading some of the searches though. "How to murder your wife" followed by "how to clean up a crime scene" is my favorite.
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