One day, you might get a phone call from a reporter who knows more about you than your mother ever did. Not just facts that are publicly available, but the kind of pornography you like, the time you thought you might have AIDS, how you planned to dispose of the body of your spouse, and so on. And if you have ever searched for bomb-making instructions or child pornography or something similar, you can now worry about the fact that someone may well have kept a record.
The first person to be exposed in this way is "Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga.," and she was called by The New York Times. Happily for her, she doesn't seem to have any skeletons in her closet -- she worries about the health of her three dogs, and her friends, and wondered when would be the best time to visit Italy.
Arnold is Searcher No 4417749 in the search data that AOL released recently. It was, technically, anonymous data, but it was pretty easy to track her down from the searches she typed in.
Ms. Arnold, who agreed to discuss her searches with a reporter, said she was shocked to hear that AOL had saved and published three months' worth of them. "My goodness, it's my whole personal life," she said. "I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder."
The information has cost AOL a customer:
Ms. Arnold says she loves online research, but the disclosure of her searches has left her disillusioned. In response, she plans to drop her AOL subscription. "We all have a right to privacy," she said. "Nobody should have found this all out."
However, someone should tell her that practically every search engine keeps similar logs, and some may keep them longer, if not forever.
The fact that those logs exist means they are at least potentially accessible to governments and other organisations that want them badly enough, and are willing to get them by fair means or foul.
And the next expose may not be a friendly exchange between two older ladies like Ms Arnold and The New York Times.....
