• by Seana Mulcahy , August 14, 2006

Well, I'm fired up today. Why, you ask? Did you hear how AOL publicly released search data of 658,000 customers without their permission? It gets worse: most of the search queries represent the filth that lives online.

To add insult to injury, AOL apologized for releasing the information, then retracted it. If you are reading this, then you well know that anything that ends up online--even for an instant--cannot simply "disappear."

There were about 21 million search queries from AOL users over the course of 3 months. Not surprisingly, this was all compiled in a whopping database that was released on the AOL site last week by its research group. Members were not asked permission; their names were not released. However, numbers were given to users to indicate an identification of sorts.

Jaws continued to drop as people flocked to see what the user IDs revealed. Looking at the data paints a very vivid picture of what that person is like: his or her demographics, psychographics and technographics. It was also quite easy to deduce what type of person was typing in such keywords and phrases.

Yes, this is the holy grail for many of us (me included) in advertising and marketing. Let's face it; we all want to know what appeals to our customers and prospects. However, we spend a lot of time and money wholeheartedly believing in the protection of privacy online. (Well, most of us, anyhow.)

Not only was this a microscopically drawn fine line, it disclosed some shocking revelations. For instance, I took a look at the daily logs of user 711391. These were some of his or her search terms:

How to make a man yearn with desire for you

Playing hard to get

Pink porn stars

Astros.com

People are not the same in person as they are on the internet

How to move on after a break up

Dr. Phil...then take a look at the train of thought....

Tips for avoiding an ex

Cheating is a waste of time

Casual sex

Is strep contagious

Growing up living a sheltered life

Why are abused children so mature

When does hurricane season start

Kennel club Houston tx

Picture of sluts

Myspace.com

Marie Osmond

Marie osmonds's daughters...

Then the keyword phrases get more and more sexually explicit. So it's a woman who lives in Texas, likes dogs, and seeks the advice of Dr. Phil while worried about hurricanes. She clearly takes a turn for the perverse as the queries go on.

Many other users follow similar, if not worse, patterns.Consider some of user number 5423062's searches within the course of a day. They begin with:

Catherine's

Fashion Bug

CrichtonCollege

Free online courses bible...and range in keywords centered on how to get together a church festival, to Christian singers and lyrics, to Bible verses and Methodist churches. They then segue into Mariah Carey's butterfly ring to the plus-size women's clothing store Avenue. Sadly, the user then types "self esteem," and quickly hops over to another store for plus-sized women, Lane Bryant, then back to Bible verses and psalms. After a few minutes she looks up pus, amoxicillin, consults WebMd, then goes back to looking for plus-sized dresses, a diversity of shoe designers and brands, and back to religious keywords. In a matter of minutes, the user begins to type words like "erotic"....you get the drift.

These searches were somewhat PG compared to many others. Let's just say they ranged from people looking up how to kill someone, to keywords featuring drugs, porn, incest, pedophilia, etc. The sickest part was that many started off with searches on religion, cars, restaurants, movies...everyday life...and ended up twisted, disgustingly graphic, and downright sadistic.

So what did AOL have to say as we all began to cringe? "This was a screw-up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant," was the statement.

I could go on and on about this. However, I'm on a word count here. Dare I ask, would you want to see users' search queries, or do you think search privacy needs to be preserved? After seeing the types of queries of AOL users, would you think twice before sinking money into AOL search? Do you feel this way about Google, MSN and other search engines? Share your take with us on the Spin blog. For me, when it comes to search, it's a case of "be careful what you wish for."