Insider Blogging looks at the blogs about our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

I'm what you might call a First Amendment scholar, having taken law-school-level courses on the subject and researched a number of such cases for my various, data-rich employers. And even though I'm a political liberal, I have a bias against extending "privacy" laws to online behavior, especially when said online behavior is conducted on very public services. I just don't agree that there is a "compelling interest" in protecting one's search behavior, especially if it can't be definitively traced back to the individual. In a free society, private enterprises should be able to do whatever they wish with the information you type into their tools; unless they've told you otherwise. In my opinion? Your behavior on a search engine is just as protectable as anything else you do in the public realm; what groceries you purchase, for instance, or what car you drive.

So I'm entirely not shocked that AOL put a bunch of customer search data (without, it must be noted, any identifying information about who did the searching) online 10 days ago. Now, apologies have been issued ("This was a screw-up, and we're angry and upset," says a spokesperson). I seem to be in the minority, however; the internet, it is horrified.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch seems to be most shocked, saying that "The utter stupidity of this is staggering ," [emphasis his] and he claims that "the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to ... many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with "buy ecstasy" and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless."

Wow. That's a bit inflammatory, Michael, don't you think?

Even some of Michael's commenters (211 at last count, many even angrier than Michael, himself -- "Many innocent lives are going to be ruined over this," says one) thought it was a bit of an overstatement that the users identified searching for ways to "buy ecstasy" were going to be locked up in prison by tomorrow afternoon. [What is this, 1960s Russia?] Anne H. said, "I looked at their privacy policy on www.aol.com. I don't see an area which was violated. I also have to think the research arm was more familiar with the privacy policy than I and this release would have to pass internal review ... In addition, people have talked about being able to determine who the actual users were, but I'm not certain that is easy to do on our end. How do you know the search for "Bob Jones" in "Anytown, USA" is for someone doing an "ego search" versus someone doing a reference check on a resume?"

Not to mention, accidentally-released inattributable data on internet searches wasn't admissable in court as evidence. Last time I checked. Naturally, identity thieves are not held to such strict rules, but they get their data directly from the credit card companies in most cases ... identity thieves, they certainly are resourceful.

My boss, Jason Calacanis, is shocked too. He wishes that AOL wouldn't even keep this data. "I think we should use this as a way to brand AOL Search: We don't record your searches!" [emphasis his] His commenters generally agreed with his modest proposal, saying things such as, "This entire incident is a complete fiasco. I thought AOL's image had reached an all-time low after "the call" but something like this was unthinkable," but some had other ideas. "Lets, instead, teach AOL users that "when you look at a web page, chances are, it's looking back at you and telling its friends about you," said Dossy Shiobara. I love that idea.

Other bloggers were less bold-and-all-caps than Michael and Jason. Matt Marshall at Silicon Beat said he and the team were "cringing" and wonders if anyone else thinks "they've gone over the line with this." (I'll go ahead and answer for you: yes, lots of others do.) But mostly, people were just having fun analyzing the data. Lots of AOL users, evidently, want to "commit murder," says Paradigm Shift. There's a man in Fayetteville, NC who wants a girl who will pay for sex, says Jason Stamper. Someone wants to find a gay escort in Bombay, says Yeah, About That.

Shocking.