[IP] Search terms contain no personal information?
Begin forwarded message:
From: Kathryn Myronuk <kathryn@xxxxxxxx>
Date: January 20, 2006 7:20:02 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
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
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