A Brief Introduction

Search engines are invaluable internet tools used by millions of people in order to obtain vast amounts of information about any topic imaginable. Many people were not aware though that search engines collect and save search logs from internet users. However, many people learned of this in August 2006, when America Online publicly released search log data from approximately 650,000 users -- without permission. The purpose of this was for research; however, America Online did not comprehend at the time the massive privacy violation that they had committed. They accidentally revealed many private details about their users. The search logs contained extremely personal and sensitive information that many users would not want public, such as family difficulties, depression issues, and medical concerns. America Online had used identification numbers rather than names and user identifications when listing the search logs, but in some cases it was still possible to identify the user based on their search results since some search logs included names, addresses, and social security numbers. Privacy advocates were outraged, and AOL soon withdrew the information and publicly apologized. Nevertheless, it was too late. The private information was all over the internet, and the damage was done. People became greatly concerned about their privacy and the issue of whether search engines should collect and save data from internet users arose.