The Face of One AOL Searcher Exposed

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from "numb fingers" to "60 single men" to "dog that urinates on everything., report NYT journalists Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., but with a permission from Mrs. Thelma Arnold, 62. "Those are my searches," she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her, continues the article."

Comments

What a ho

[mgblst]

"60 single men"
 
At her age. I think she should be happy with a couple, but 60... gotta admire her!

Hmm

[Iamthefallen]

User 48956332 Perl For Dummies
User 48956332 HTML 4, whats the big deal
User 48956332 Howto use sandboxen in development
User 48956332 What is CSS
User 48956332 Unit testing
User 48956332 Spelcheking
User 48956332 Why is Digg growing so fast?

Re:Hmm

[LiquidCoooled]

User 48956332 Preventing Dupes.
User 48956332 Preventing Dupes.
User 48956332 Preventing Dupes.
User 48956332 Preventing Dupes.

Re:Hmm

[JPDeckers]

Love browsing the data. As I noticed yesterday, a nice trace for user 14109288 (stripped a bit for readability):

sexual positions 2006-05-22 21:57:18 http://www.sexualpositionsfree.com/
sexual positions 2006-05-22 21:57:18 http://www.askmen.com/
sexual positions 2006-05-22 21:57:18 http://www.condoms.au.com/
premature ejaculation 2006-05-22 22:20:23 http://www.webmd.com/

Note the timestamps of the last two lines, sounds like he had, well, an evening that did not go as planned

Search string

[KiloByte]

"dog that urinates on everything., report NYT journalists Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., but with a permission from Mrs. Thelma Arnold, 62. "

Hmm... an interesting search query.
But at least it looks like my code isn't the only place invaded by quote-abducting aliens.

but with permission...

[Catmeat]

... but with a permission from Mrs. Thelma Arnold, 62...

In other words, the journalists tracked down about 20 AOL searchers, but Mrs Arnold was the only one to give permission for the article as hers was the only search term list that didn't include 'midget porn'.

Oblig. Prisoner

[ettlz]

Where am I?
You're on AOL.
What do you want?
Search information.
Whose side are you on?
That would be telling. We want information. Information. Information.
You won't get it.
By hook or by crook, we will.
Who are you?
The new ad-funded AOL Number 2.
Who is Number 1?
You are Number 4417749.
I am not a number -- I am a free gran!

Re:She should stay at AOL

[shudde]

At the end of the article, she says she's cancelling her AOL account as a result.

Correction, she's going to try to cancel her AOL account.

AOL's apology vs. Dilbert's boss

[khendron]

From AOL's public apology

"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..."

This is sounding very much like Dilbert's boss's public apology made years ago:

"It was wrong for us to sell keyboards with no 'Q' We're sorry. We're morons. We're dumber than squirrels. We hear voices and do what they command. I have broccoli in my socks. "

user 4417749's Search Records

[aquatone282]

4417749 numb fingers
4417749 60 single men
4417749 dog that urinates on everything
4417749 landscapers in Lilburn, Ga
4417749 bill arnold
4417749 carpet shampoo rental
4417749 julie arnold
4417749 stan arnold
4417749 homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia
4417749 gwinnet county animal services
4417749 stan arnold
4417749 pecan pie recipes
4417749 McGyver DVDs
4417749 pet euthanasia services