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Chronicle of AOL Search Query Log Release Incident

  • Google vs. DOJ   before the AOL Incident

01/20/2006 Report from the New York Times Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data

02/26/2006 Report from the New York Times Justice Dept. Rejects Google's Privacy Issues

03/15/2006 Report from the New York Times U.S. Limits Demands on Google

03/18/2006 Report from the New York Times Google Ordered to Submit Data for Child Pornography Study

02/06/2006 FAQ from ZDNet FAQ: When Google is not your friend

  • Beginning of AOL Incident

08/03/2006, a researcher of AOL sent an email about  the release of AOL query log data at SIG-IRList newsletter: email

Although AOL took the data down a few days later (probably Monday 08/07/2006), subsequent copies of the data are still available online, (e.g., download from this mirror site, or search "AOL search query log" on a popular search engine).

  • Response on Blogs

08/04/2006, Blog by Greg Linden at Blogger: (positive opinion):  A chance to play with big data

08/06/2006, Blog by Michael Arlington at TechCrunch (negative opinion): AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data

08/07/2006, Report at slashdot.org: AOL Releases Search Logs of 657,427 Users (some blog links in this article and a lot of follow-up comments)

  • Apology from AOL

        08/07/2006, Apology from Andrew Weinstein, AOL Spokesman  "This was a screw-up" (copy from TechCrunch)

08/07/2006, Report from CNET: AOL Apologizes For Release of User Search Data

  • Report from News Media

08/08/2006, Report from the New York Times AOL Removes Search Data on Group of Web Users

08/09/2006, Report from the New York Times  A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749

08/12/2006, Report from the New York Times Your Life as an Open Book

08/15/2006, Report from the New York Times Marketers Trace Paths Users Leave on Internet (about personalized ad)

08/15/2006, Debate between "Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy rights group" and "Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, a lobby group for Internet firms including Google and Yahoo" at Wall Street Journal  Should Web Search Data Be Stored?

08/21/2006, Report from the New York Times AOL Technology Chief Quits After Data Release

08/22/2006, Report from the New York Times AOL Moves to Increase Privacy on Search Queries

08/23/2006, Report from the New York Times Researchers Yearn to Use AOL Logs, but They Hesitate

  • Complaint by Privacy Advocate Group

08/14/2006, Complaint filed by Electronic Frontier Foundation: FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Complaint

08/16/2006, Complaint filed by World Privacy Forum: FTC Complaint

  • Bill in Congress

04/03/2003, HR 1636,Consumer Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which asks to protect and enhance consume privacy

02/07/2006, H.R.4731, Bill proposed  by Congressman. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), which asks Internet companies remove obsolete data containing personal information

04/25/2006, Bill proposed by Congresswoman DeGette (D-Colo.), which asks Internet companies keep and preserve customer information for up to two years so that law enforcement can subpoena records of suspected criminals

  • Search Service Built on AOL Query Log Data Set

Search AOL query log  AOLSearchLogs.com

Some findings about the searchers from AOL query log non-scientific finding

Wiki about AOL Query Log AOL500K

  • Research Papers about Privacy Preservation of Data Publishing and Distribution (on Relational data, not search engine query log)

    Privacy Preserving Data Mining, Rakesh Agrawal, et. al. ACM SIGMOD International Conference of Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2000.

    k-Anonymity: a model for protecting privacy, Latanya Sweeney,  International Journal on Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-based System, 2002.

    Mondrian Multidimensional K-Anonymity, Kristen LeFevre, et. al.  IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering, 2006.

     

  • Research Project on Privacy Preservation of Search Engine Query Log

TrackMeNot: Privacy Through Obfuscation (A NYU Project led by Professor Helen Nissenbaum)

PORTIA: Sensitive Information in a Wired World (a joint project of multiple universities)