Much is being made of the AOL security lapse, where they left millions of search records sitting in a file anyone could download if they knew where it was.
The real issue that everyone forgets is that the major search engines, not just AOL, routinely compile and save billions of these records, and sell either the raw data or data summaries, or both. There are plenty of eager customers, and this is a business worth many millions of dollars. AOL execs are probably not losing much sleep over the security breach. They are probably kicking someone silly, though, for screwing up the opportunity to sell all those records.
Whether we like it or not, our daily travels around the Internet--almost everything we do--leaves a nice clear trail of bread crumbs that are easily available to others. Some Web sites are ethical and don't redistribute or sell any of these results (including this site). Others, like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL, have made a business of telling other people what you are doing. We love our "free" search engines and the convenience that it brings to us in our personal and business work. But this is not a free lunch; we all pay every time we use a "free" search service or some other kind of "free" service--Flickr, FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube--all these "free" services have enormous costs associated with them, and we pay by giving up some of our privacy.
I worry most about our kids, who need our help understanding what they may be losing permanently. Already, FaceBook and MySpace are being used by employers to learn more about prospective employees, and many college students are learning a hard lesson: there are consequences to posting personal information online, where the whole world can see it.
As the crusty old seargent used to say on "Hill Street Blues," "Let's be careful out there."