AOL "Angry & Upset" After Releasing Search Data

[nuclei]

Ouch! The title says it all.

AOL Research apparently inadvertantly posted a gzipped tarball of 500,000 websites sampled including every keyword they are ranking for. This was first discovered at the url:

[research.aol.com...]

[edited by: engine at 5:06 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2006]

[killroy]

After spending some time with the 17500 book corpus of the Gutenberg Project and seeding Markvo Chain models, I wonder just how easy it would be to seed these search terms and create fake research data for any number of SEs, all spread via anonymous bittorrents...

[gregbo]

It is easy to create fake, misleading data. However, that won't stop the obviously personally identifiable data from being identified.

[Atomic]

I agree absolutly. My personal gripe isn't with Google, rather with people who keep linking to Wikipedia or reference it as their defacto go to source for everything even in matters where it isn't an appropriate source to use (e.g. science).

This sums up the problem perfectly.

<edit reason: thread surgery>

[edited by: tedster at 11:15 pm (utc) on Aug. 13, 2006]

[ap_Rhys]

people who keep linking to Wikipedia or reference

And that includes contributors to forums and blog comments, by the thousand.

[europeforvisitors]

This sums up the problem perfectly.

If that's the case, it isn't a Google Search problem, it's a user problem--assuming that it is a problem, which is open to debate.

[Atomic]

If that's the case, it isn't a Google Search problem, it's a user problem--assuming that it is a problem, which is open to debate.

If incoming links and popularity still matter to Google then you may be right. I think many people have no idea what good evidence or references are. I see people that think hearsay or anecdotal evidence counts. A google search for the word anecdotal gives ironic results.

[soapystar]

I see people that think hearsay or anecdotal evidence counts

yes, ive heard this too!

[wmuser]

That is seems to be a huge mess up on AOL side.
I guess they have lost even more reputation than with any otehr scandlae before
By the way [research.aol.com...] and
[research.aol.com...]
are both down but there are mirrors available to download the data

<edit reason: thread surgery>

[edited by: tedster at 11:17 pm (utc) on Aug. 13, 2006]

[helleborine]

I hope I am too too off-topic - but I downloaded the database.

And I found someone looking up my full name... creepy. That same person is keenly interested in learning how to drum, and has fertility problems.

[gregbo]

Why do you find it creepy that someone is looking up your full name (assuming you give it publicly)? I regularly look up the full names of people that I'm interested in learning more about.