AOL user search data exposed

As TechCrunch reported yesterday, AOL's research department recently released 2 gigabytes of user search records to the public.

As the accompanying text file explains, the data has been "anonymized" by replacing usernames with arbitrary unique IDs. The problem, aside from no one agreeing to have their search queries made public, is that the search terms could be still be used to identify people and their habits... Well, maybe. At the very least you can make up humourous stories about random internet strangers!

Let's see.. How about user 13430672? Apparently he or she likes old movies, really likes animals, has an interest in Full House, and wants to move into a mobile home in Apache Junction, Arizona:



User 9984 on the other hand must be a high school girl looking to play a prank on a friend involving a gag and shaving someone's head. Not sure why she needs a good camera and printer but she did something with a paint sprayer at the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds this year:



... I don't think I like this game anymore.

You too can make yourself sick by downloading the full dataset from a mirror site here:
http://www.gregsadetsky.com/aol-data/