Search terms contain no personal information?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kathryn Myronuk <kathryn () ksml com>
Date: January 20, 2006 7:20:02 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Search terms contain no personal information?

Dave,

Many articles on the 1-million-websites (and 10s if not 100s of  
millions of search strings) subpoena include the search engine  
spokespersons' assertions that search strings alone contain no  
"Personally Identifiable Information" and so privacy is retained.

If search terms are sorted and aggregated this could be correct.  
Perhaps this is the case with AOL, given the statement '"We did not  
comply with the request made in the subpoena," spokesman Andrew  
Weinstein said. "Instead, we gave the Department of Justice a list of  
aggregate anonymous search terms that did not include results or any  
personally identifiable information." ' (from <a href="http:// 
www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177102061">  
InformationWeek</a>)

However, if search terms are not aggregated, then the strings--  
individually or in sets-- can be filled with personal information.  
People may search their own surnames for genealogy, finding old  
papers, or other reasons beyond egosurfing and checking googlejuice.  
People type their addresses for directions or to explore the  
profusion of new map services. Did Yahoo et al. exclude every search  
with location info?

And why would the government only want random aggregate phrases as  
compared to search sets that detail a searcher refining a request?  
Running aggregate phrases alone would be poor proof that its easy to  
find pron on the net. How could one tell if a pron-retrieving search  
string was from a single innocent search or the result of dedicated  
pron research?  I doubt the gov't will be satisfied with only  
receiving aggregated results, especially if people accept without  
question the claim that search strings aren't personal.

Readers ought to scan a week's worth of their own searches (Go ->  
History in Mozilla). I found several search sets that would combine  
my name and address, or my address and other people's info, or  
address and potentially-suspicious-searches. (Am I looking up  
'warfarin' the poison or the medicine? Is 'child pron' an evil search  
or just to find out it results 2.5 million hits on Google? Am I  
looking for 'Tor' the science fiction publisher or the "now I really  
wish I'd been using it more" EFF-funded service, or are both  
suspicious? Simply deleting my IP address isn't enough to  
depersonalize my search string history. How about yours? [note: pron  
spelled for filters]

Kathryn


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/