Declan McCullagh at CNet has posted many more, often disturbing, profiles of users gleaned from the AOL search data leak. Examples include: Based on the number of local searches, AOL user 1515830 appears to be a resident of [personal information…
Category: Privacy
Discussions of online privacy, privacy in public, intellectual privacy, digital surveillance, and the theory of privacy as “contextual integrity”.
Registration Open: Identity and Identification in a Networked World
Registration is now open for the "Identity and Identification in a Networked World" multidisciplinary graduate student symposium, September 29-30, 2006 at the NYU School of Law. Twenty graduate students from across North America and Europe will share their exciting research…
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AOL Search Log Profiles Unmasked
It is not that hard to identity actual users from the "anonymous" search data released by AOL. The New York Times quickly found user No. 4417749: No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from…
Will AOL Flap Help Privacy Awareness?
Might AOL's release of the logs of nearly 20 million web searches documenting three months of activity by 650,000 AOL users serve to raise awareness of the privacy concerns with web search surveillance (that I've been writing about forever)? Seth…
AOL’s Apology Misses the Mark
AOL has issued an apology for releasing the logs of nearly 20 million web searches documenting three months of activity by 650,000 AOL users: "This was a screw-up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough…
AOL Data Includes Social Security Numbers
Have you ever searched for your social security number to see if it happened to be posted online somewhere? Have you searched for it along with your name? Many do, and it has apparently been confirmed that the massive database…
AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data
[I've pasted this in its entirety from TechCrunch - unbelievable] AOL must have missed the uproar over the DOJ’s demand for “anonymized” search data last year that caused all sorts of pain for Microsoft and Google. That’s the only way…
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More Amateur Surveillance and Data Mining
The latest amateur surveillance and data mining story stars a suburban mom upset about the house being toilet-papered by area teens. She didn't want to involve the police, so she took the following steps: She canvassed local stores to see…
Others Online: Opt-In Web Surveillance
A new service called Others Online makes obvious what Google Toolbar and other browser tools do in the background: track users web browsing activities. From their site: Others Online is a free toolbar that shows you people relevant to your…
Privacy-protected web search with Ixquick
In response to growing concerns over search engine privacy, the metasearch engine Ixquick has announced it will permanently delete all personal search details gleaned from its users from their log files. From their press release: As digital technology increasingly pervades…
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