Search logs show what people are thinking

Some AOL search records were published this week, in violation of their privacy policy. Although users' names were not released, it is obvious that many people could be identified by what they searched for.

News agencies, marketeers, voyeurs, and law enforcement can't help but want to dig around in it because it is so revealing -- like reading someone's diary, or their mind.

We are all potential victims of this kind of exposure. There is no reason to trust the search engines. They want to spy on us so they can sell us stuff, and privacy invasions like this are inevitable, because they keep the records around for some unkown amount of time.

Only one service is safe to use if you want your most private searches to stay private. scroogle.org, which anonymizes Google searching. Remember to donate some cash to keep them going now and then.

Of course, your Internet service provider can intercept anything you do online, but at least with Scroogle you're not giving up your secrets to a company run by advertising dollars, and they don't keep the search records.

More stories about the problem:

Google sees privacy threats

The Register points out the 600,000 AOL users' data were released intentionally for research purposes

"The only solution to the problem of data abuse - and it's only an inadequate, and very partial answer - is to ensure the data isn't there to abuse in the first place. If search engines were required to delete their users' queries as soon as they were made, and to leave no trace, this would greatly diminish the dangers of false inference by law enforcement officials, health companies, banks, HMOs, and anyone else seduced by the lure of a faulty algorithm."

This Firefox extension is aimed toward putting the privacy back into your Google searching: Customize Google