Privacy on the internet is a big issue these days. If you haven’t heard of the recent AOL leak of personal web searches (or even if you have), you might want to read on about how you can protect yourself, your identity, and privacy while searching through the big ol’ world wide web. These tips from LifeHacker will help prevent people from putting together a personal profile of you (think marketing, id theft, or worse).
Protect Your Web Searches
by Wendy Boswell
“My goodness, it’s my whole personal life,” she said. “I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder.” -Thelma Arnold, AOL Searcher No. 4417749
AOL’s recent “doh!” release of more than 500K user search records has prompted many people to examine their search methods. While no one approach is absolutely foolproof, using a combination of common sense searching strategies will make it harder for engines (or anyone else) to put together a detailed profile of you. Keep reading today’s feature for a few ways to protect yourself from search engines.
AOL: shock and awe
The biggest problem with AOL’s search records release is not what the individual queries revealed (although some of them were pretty disturbing); it was the fact that any search could be tied to one unique user ID. Looking at someone’s individual searches is not necessarily invasive – however, tie all those searches to one unique user ID and we’ve got a problem. For example:
~Angel Brady
