Are You the Sum of Your Search Terms?

How much do most of us think about the search terms we enter into our search engine of choice? Are there times when you hesitate entering a word or phrase? Do you ever wonder if someone out there, either an employee of the company that runs your search engine or some faceless researcher who gains access to that data, is wondering exactly what sort of weirdo searches for such things?

A new play in Philadelphia called User 927 wonders as well. Based very loosely on one of the more eccentric collections of search terms that made news two years ago when AOL botched access to their research base, the play weaves the search profile of User 927 into the plot, blending reality with the fiction of the play.

The search terms of User 927 were blog fodder for days back in 2006. Besides some downright disturbing searches, the user searched different types of flowers, medical information, and "Dying Elmo." But for the most part, the security lapse of these search profiles identified only by a number have been forgotten, replaced in our collective consciousness by other far more egregious breaches that involve financial information and identity theft.

I'm sure that User 927 thought that his or her 15 minutes of unidentified fame were long over before this play started getting press, but now it's back again, and it revisits not only the privacy issues that haunt us all online, but also the issue of what you hold most private. Would having your credit card number be revealed on a web site feel more or less of a violation than your search terms?

My search terms are a stream-of-consciousness progression through my day. I rarely trust my spell-check, and often check the spelling simply by entering a word as a search term; it will invariably ask me if I "meant this?" as a suggestion, and I'll know how far off base I was. I look for sources for story ideas, information for my children, paranoid medical questions that usually involve my children, weather information, gardening knowledge I've forgotten like how to make my pink hydrangeas blue again, and, because I hate being wrong, I'll often look things up after a disagreement with someone just to verify that I was right.

I search for exes, liking them to stay where they are put, because nothing is worse than getting caught by one in the grocery store wearing my schlumpiest sweats with no make-up because I wasn't aware of a move back here. I check my children's names to make sure they don't appear anywhere online. I look up phone numbers, maps to playdates for my children, and regularly try to pick a new doctor closer to my house by doing searches. And I assume every time I enter a new word or phrase that I am doing so privately.

As Web 2.0 puts more and more data out there, more and more people are saying that the idea of privacy is dead, and people need to adjust their thinking to accept that. And I can recognize that much of my personal information is out there, and try to manage that information to the best of my ability. But search terms can be a window to a person's mind and soul, and User 927 is a reminder that telepathy may not be the only way to see through that window.