Remember the AOL gaff that saw 650,000 AOL customers search queries released to the public? Well some enterprising souls have used it to create a searchable database.

The site aptly named AOL Stalker allows you to search the data base of 363,895,69 searches made by AOL users from 01 March, 2006 - 31 May, 2006.

While AOL removed the data very quickly due to the subsequent uproar, it was not quick enough. The data has been and will be immortalized for a very long time.

You can search the data base by term or by user number. Each user that is logged onto AOL gets a unique identifier or a number, with this number you can search the searches made by a “user” with the unique identifying number. When this data was released it was search data was matched with a number, no names. Ironically, you can “rate” a number or “user” for the entertainment value the results have. Of course there is tagging as well! One cool feature is that you can see what other “stalkers” are searching for in the database.

When you search a number (unique number for an anonymous user) the following is displayed:

• Search Term
• Time of search & date
• The URL that the user clicked on
• Rank

The about page states that individuals are not identified and that any data that does should be reported to them and it will be removed:

“If you find any data that actually makes it possible to identify a user, please let us know using the contact form and we’ll remove those references.”

Still I am not sure that I would be too happy if I was an unlucky user who’s search terms were in this lot. By the admission of this site there could well be identifying information yet to be discovered. Motivation for the site:

“…some of these search histories are damn funny.”

“We think that this site puts a customer pressure on AOL and all other companies to create usable data integrity policies that actually work. AOL is clearly trying to hide this whole mess under the carpet, but why should we?”

While I do not think that AOL Stalker is trying to be malicious. Users would be none too happy though and disappointed that their search terms are there for all to see. Even if it is “anonymous”. This was bound to happen, but I don’t think it right. It does however rub salt into AOL for their stupidity. That aside AOL Stalker is well executed, I’ll give them that.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 8:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.