The data includes all searches from those users for a three month period this year, as well as whether they clicked on a result, what that result was and where it appeared on the result page. It’s a 439 MB compressed download, expanded to just over 2 gigs. The data is available here (this link is directly to the file) and the output is in ten text files, tab delineated.
Further Update: Sometime after 7 pm the download link went down as well, but there is at least one mirror site. AOL is in damage control mode – the fact that they took the data down shows that someone there had the sense to realize how destructive this was, but it is also an admission of wrongdoing of sorts. Either way, the data is now out there for anyone that wants to use (or abuse) it.
Update: Sometime around 7 pm PST on Sunday, the AOL site referred to below was taken down. The direct link to the data is still live.
AOL must have missed the uproar over the DOJ’s demand for “anonymized” search data last year that caused all sorts of pain for Microsoft and Google. That’s the only way to explain their release of data that includes 20 million web queries from 650,000 AOL users.
The utter stupidity of this is staggering. AOL has released very private data about its users without their permission. While the AOL username has been changed to a random ID number, the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to. The data includes personal names, addresses, social security numbers and everything else someone might type into a search box.
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this is where i burst out laughing again as i have in some other seriously hillaious topics.