In yet another case of unauthorized data leaks, search queries from more than 600,000 AOL users made over three months this year became easily available over the Internet, raising an outcry from bloggers who criticized the company for not protecting the privacy of its search engine users.

AOL had planned to make the data available only to researchers as part of an effort to help the academic community develop new search-related tools but ended up posting it on a wiki page that could be accessed by all.

Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymous users were released. AOL said there were about 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly a third of 1 percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network during that period.

AOL has pulled down the page containing the data.

“This was a screw-up, and we’re angry and upset about it,” said Andrew Weinstein, a spokesperson for AOL. “It was an innocent-enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.”

The searches included as part of this data were only U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software.

The data included search queries from March to May. The information however, was anonymized, meaning the user screen names were replaced with unique numbers. However, some bloggers pointed out that the search queries themselves could expose personal information about some of the users.

Shares of Time Warner, AOL’s parent company, fell $0.21 to $16.35 in recent trading.

Time Warner announced last week that AOL would make email and other services free, and AOL would cut 5,000 jobs as a result (see AOL Frees Its Portal and AOL: You’ve Got Layoffs!).

DOJ Seeks Search Data

The easy availability of the information is remarkable because search queries from large search engines have attracted interest from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Recently, Google received a subpoena from the DOJ requesting access to similar data. The company refused to share the information and a federal judge eventually ruled in the search giant’s favor (see Google Makes Deal with DOJ).

“AOL intentionally released the data to researchers, which is not the first time log data has been made available to the research community,” said Greg Linden, chief executive of Findory.com, a personalized online news site, who has been closely following the news of the leak.

“But normally in order to get access to this kind of data, researchers have to sign a form or a legal agreement,” he added. “AOL made it available freely to all.”

In the past, Google has released limited data to researchers relating to search queries. But AOL’s goof, making its data available to everyone over the Internet, has drawn strong reactions.

“This was not a leak—it was intentional,” said Adam D’Angelo, a student at Caltech who was among the earliest to discover the data. “In their desperation to gain recognition from the research community, AOL decided they would compromise their integrity to provide a data set that might become often-cited in research papers.”

Declining Consumer ConfidenceIncidences of data leaks could have strong ramifications for large brands, according to a survey released separately Monday by the Chief Marketing Officer Council, a nonprofit organization that counts more than 2,300 chief marketing officers as its members.

Consumers are increasingly getting worried about breaches in information security, and that could have a major impact on consumer loyalty and business relationships, said Scott Van Camp, director of the CMO Council.

The council’s survey of over 2,200 consumers found that more than half of the respondents said their security concerns are rising.

Nearly 40 percent said they have actually stopped a transaction online, on the phone, or in a store due to a security concern, while more than one-third indicate they would “strongly consider” taking their business elsewhere if their personal information were compromised, and a quarter would “definitely” take their business elsewhere.

“When we asked consumers what their most trusted brand was, the responses were all over the board,” said Mr. Van Camp. “That means there is a lot of room for companies to create strategies to better respond to the breaches.”

Research Setback

Consumer fears over data leaks and breaches are not overblown. In 2005, more than 52 million account records were stolen or misplaced.

The latest incident with AOL, however, could be a setback to one set of interested users: researchers.

“The research community has had difficulty getting this kind of data which they need to improve search engines,” said Mr. Linden. “AOL tried to do something and they have gotten roundly slapped for it, which is a little sad and eventually hurts the research community trying to build better search engines.”

Contact the writer:PGanapati@RedHerring.com