you are what you search

so, there is one more reason why people should switch from AOL - the company may release your search history without telling you abt it. in spite of masking the identities of users, it has unwittingly provided too much info abt its subscribers. now, the smart men on the net who spend a lot of time talking about data security, privacy, etc., have begun unravelling "trends" from this pile of somebody else's data. on the assumption that AOL subscribers are a good sample of all subscribers in the US, if not in the entire world (in case you think that the US is not the entire world), this writer has classified search enthusiasts into 7 broad categories. clearly, there are people who belong to more than one category.

but i am more amused / surprised by some of the findings. categories NEWBIE and BASKET CASE seem to be one or two stray cases that the writer has tried to generalise. i mean, a search entry that reads "i hurt when i think too much i love roadtrips i hate my weight i fear being alone for the rest of my life." is a little too much!