AOL, Google, and Yahoo have been in the news about their responses to a Justice Department request for search terms used by the worldwide Internet community. AOL and Yahoo have agreed, while Google has refused to hand over the information. A court battle is on the way.
I really haven’t given this subject much thought until the other night when I was looking for references to my family name using Google. I searched on my name, family member’s names, addresses and even phone numbers. Then it occurred to me - search terms do contain private data. How many times have I put someone’s name into a search engine to find out about them? By now, hundreds of times. The government has said repeatedly they are not interested in who is performing the search, but I also believe there is enough private data in search terms to restrict that data as well. Considering the amount of time Google and Yahoo have probably been archiving usage data for profiling and optimizing their services, there has to be mountains of search terms that would make an NSA analyst wet themself.
How many people have put their social security number into a search engine to see if it has been compromised? How many people have put a credit card number into a search engine for the same reason? How many times have you searched on something related only to you? Perhaps something private about you?
The more I thought about it, the more I believe that every bit of data related to Internet search should be maintained as private and should only be obtained through proper court authority.