I'm surprised there's not more of a brouhaha over this.

The internets are all atwitter about how AOL leaked people's search information. It's yet another knife in to the decomposing corpse of AOL, thanks to their outmoded business practices, and continuing muff-ups.

Web Searchers' Identities Traced on AOL

'Buried in a list of 20 million Web search queries collected by AOL and recently released on the Internet is user No. 4417749. The number was assigned by the company to protect the searcher’s anonymity, but it is not much of a shield.

No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from 'numb fingers' to '60 single men' to 'dog that urinates on everything.'

And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for 'landscapers in Lilburn, Ga,' several people with the last name Arnold and 'homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia.'

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends' medical ailments and loves her three dogs. 'Those are my searches,' she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her. '