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Technology|A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749
  
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html

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A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749

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By Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr.

  * Aug. 9, 2006

Buried in a list of 20 million Web search queries collected by AOL
and recently released on the Internet is user No. 4417749. The number
was assigned by the company to protect the searcher's anonymity, but
it was not much of a shield.

No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period
on topics ranging from "numb fingers" to "60 single men" to "dog that
urinates on everything."

And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No.
4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for "landscapers
in Lilburn, Ga," several people with the last name Arnold and "homes
sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia."

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to
Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga.,
frequently researches her friends' medical ailments and loves her
three dogs. "Those are my searches," she said, after a reporter read
part of the list to her.

AOL removed the search data from its site over the weekend and
apologized for its release, saying it was an unauthorized move by a
team that had hoped it would benefit academic researchers.

But the detailed records of searches conducted by Ms. Arnold and
657,000 other Americans, copies of which continue to circulate
online, underscore how much people unintentionally reveal about
themselves when they use search engines -- and how risky it can be for
companies like AOL, Google and Yahoo to compile such data.

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