__/ [ John Bokma ] on Monday 07 August 2006 09:45 \__
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> [AOL logs]
>
>> Not knowing what constitutes these logs,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>> DNS and reverse DNS lookups
>> are a snap (it's scriptable command-line job).
>
> IP addresses are not included. Wouldn't be much use of changing the screen
> name into a numeric ID if the IP address was still included.
>
> "The data set includes {AnonID, Query, QueryTime, ItemRank, ClickURL}.
> AnonID - an anonymous user ID number.
> Query - the query issued by the user, case shifted with
> most punctuation removed.
> QueryTime - the time at which the query was submitted for search.
> ItemRank - if the user clicked on a search result, the rank of the
> item on which they clicked is listed.
> ClickURL - if the user clicked on a search result, the domain portion of
> the URL in the clicked result is listed."
>
> Major question is: how was AnonID created.
>
>
>> fixed IP address that is out there on the Web. So whatever AOL has put
>> out there, it's powerful data for intelligence
>
> True, but it doesn't include IP addresses. However, if you have a site
> that gets often hits via AOL you might be able to track down some IP
> addresses. It's 3 months, and 500,000 users. Some of those might even have
> hit my site :-) Because time stamps are included, it's a piece of cake to
> match.
>
>> (and it's available to
>> all). Anyone can download it and use it upon demand.
>
> Yup, AOL took it down quite fast, but one copy is all it takes.
A public apology:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6102793.html
AOL apologizes for release of user search data
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