Recently, the internet giant handed out to researchers, the serach terms that over 650,000 of its subcribers used, in what was apparently an “innocent attempt to reach out to the academic community with research tools”.

Whilst the terms could not be linked to specific individuals, they could have contained personally identifiable information. This has upset many subcribers as it has not yet been made public who the researchers were, and why they wanted the data.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, after AOL removed the file that contained “information on 19 million queries and included information on what search terms were used, when the search was conducted and whether the user clicked on any of the results”, copies started spreading about the internet for all to see!

AOL is said to be treating it as a very serious incident (although they did it on purpose!) so meanwhile, be careful what you search for!

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