The latest trends in online behavioral advertising/marketing suggest that our search queries and the IP addresses associated with them can personally identify an individual. Back in August, 2006, The New York Times wrote an article on how AOL released over 20 million search queries, and to protect the searcher's anonymity, assigned them a random number.
User 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.”
And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for “landscapers in Lilburn, Ga,” several people with the last name Arnold and “homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia.”
It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs. “Those are my searches,” she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.
Now, someone please explain to me how IP addresses are not personally identifiable information? This will be discussed in depth on July 13, 2009, at Seattle University, Engineering Building, Room 200, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Seaton M. Daly III, Esq.
Law Office of Seaton M. Daly III, PLLC