Noise could mask web searchers' IDs

Noise could mask web searchers' IDs
07 March 2009 by Paul Marks

ADDING noise to search-engine records could help keep surfers' identities private. A team from Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, says the technique is a major step towards "provable privacy".
Records of internet searches made on websites such as Google and AOL are hugely useful to software engineers trying to improve search technology. Such data also give social scientists a valuable window on our largely uninhibited digital search behaviours. The problem is that such information can easily identify individuals who have carried out the searches, breaching their privacy.
Until now, search engines' attempts to anonymise this data have proved somewhat inept. In one case, AOL replaced its customers' names with random numbers before making the data public. But some queries proved so specific - such as people searching their own names and social security numbers - that reporters from The New York Times were able to use them to track down one individual.