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AOL data breach of user search data
Posted on Aug 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Update: AOL apologizes (via CNet).
You won’t believe this blunder. AOL purposely released data on 20 million web searches done by 650,000 users over a 3 month period. That’s right they meant to do it. They did replace user names with random numbers, but the web searches are all there for anyone to see. Yes, this is sensitive (and embarrassing) data and it is possible to back your way into who the person is in some cases. The data was posted by AOL research. Not sure why they thought this was a good idea. But this is going to reverberate big time. Lawsuits to follow?
Filed under: Data Breach, Identity Theft
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