NEW YORK Aug 31, 2006 (AP)— A new tool seeks to make your searches more private by hiding them in plain sight.
TrackMeNot periodically sends fake, innocuous queries to search engines, making it harder for someone to glean your actual search habits by reviewing the companies' logs that contain your queries.
The tool comes as AOL revealed it had released the search histories of more than 650,000 subscribers. Although user names were not included, the company admitted that the search terms themselves could contain sensitive information. Two AOL employees were fired and a third resigned over the disclosure.
The tool, developed by two researchers at New York University, sends random searches, such as "boston clock" and "croissant," to the four largest search engines Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and AOL. A fake search is made, on average, every 12 seconds under default configurations; the tool can generate millions of unique queries from its list, and users can add their own.
TrackMeNot, however, works only with the Firefox browser, which has less than 10 percent market share, according to WebSideStory.
It's also not foolproof. Someone knowing the list of terms TrackMeNot uses can simply strip those records out of the databases. Developers say they are working on expanding the list.
TrackMeNot is available at: http://mrl.nyu.edu/dhowe/TrackMeNot
This undated photo showing the version of Edvard Munch's 'The Scream,' which was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Aug. 22, 2004, was provided by the museum Monday, Aug. 23. Norwegian police said Monday that they were working on several tips in their search for the version of 'The Scream,' and another famous Munch painting, 'Madonna,' after a bold daytime theft from an Oslo museum on Sunday in front of stunned visitors. Two years after the brazen daylight theft of national artistic treasures from an Oslo museum, police announced Thursday they recovered the Edvard Munch masterpieces 'The Scream' and 'Madonna.' (AP Photo/ Scanpix, Munch Museum, Sidsel de Jong)
This satellite image provided by NOAA and taken at 1:45 p.m. EDT, Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006 shows Hurricane John as it moves west-northwest off the Mexican Pacific Coast. John's outer bands lashed western Mexico Tuesday night as the powerful Category 3 storm threatened to flood coastal areas and ruin vacations at some Pacific resorts. (AP Photo/NOAA)