AOL user identified by searches, plans to cancel account

The AOL user identified as 4417749 in the recently released three months of AOL search data has been found by the New York Times. She's Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow in Georgia who has often done searches about medical conditions for her friends, as well as about such things as how to deal with her dog's urination problem. The article includes a photo of her diaper-wearing dog, Dudley.

The article points out both how the search results can be used to identify the real-world user as well as how they can be misleading.

She says at the end of the article that she plans to cancel her account.