Another reason not to choose AOL.

The utter stupidity of this is staggering. 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 abilitiy 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.

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.

User 491577 searches for “florida cna pca lakeland tampa”, “emt school training florida”, “low calorie meals”, “infant seat”, and “fisher price roller blades”. Among user 39509’s hundreds of searches are: “ford 352″, “oklahoma disciplined pastors”, “oklahoma disciplined doctors”, “home loans”, and some other personally identifying and illegal stuff I’m going to leave out of here. Among user 545605’s searches are “shore hills park mays landing nj”, “frank william sindoni md”, “ceramic ashtrays”, “transfer money to china”, and “capital gains on sale of house”. Compared to some of the data, these examples are on the safe side. I’m leaving out the worst of it - searches for names of specific people, addresses, telephone numbers, illegal drugs, and more. There is no question that law enforcement, employers, or friends could figure out who some of these people are.

And there's some really scary stuff in this data if you look hard enough. For example, as this link shows,

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/aol-search-data-shows-users-planning-to-commit-murder/

17556639 how to kill your wife

17556639 how to kill your wife

17556639 wife killer

17556639 how to kill a wife

17556639 poop

17556639 dead people

17556639 pictures of dead people

17556639 killed people

17556639 dead pictures

17556639 dead pictures

17556639 dead pictures

17556639 murder photo

17556639 steak and cheese

17556639 photo of death

17556639 photo of death

17556639 death

17556639 dead people photos

17556639 photo of dead people

17556639 www.murderdpeople.com

17556639 decapatated photos

17556639 decapatated photos

17556639 car crashes

317556639 car crashes

317556639 car crash photo

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 to explain their release of data that includes 20 million web queries from 650,000 AOL users.

Note that Microsoft has proposed releasing similar data to researchers, although with an important difference - the data is not associated with a user. Excite released data very similar to what AOL has done here, with user associations, in 1999.

AOL is hitting bottom when it comes to brand image. This story comes on the heels of the recorded phone call with customer service disaster as well as a just-in story about a woman who is unable to cancel her deceased father’s AOL account, nine months after his death.