The Internet is a scary place.It is an incredible tool, a breakthrough in technology and a luxury our generation often takes for granted.

But it is also, in many cases, a blueprint of our private lives.

With the ever-advancing progress in the capabilities of search engines, virtually limitless archives of information are, literally, at our fingertips. We use Internet searches daily, but still barely scratch the surface of the never-ending black hole of information the World Wide Web has to offer.

Looking for a vacation spot? Can’t remember the lyrics to a song on the radio? Doing research for a psychology paper? Need driving directions? So many of us begin our quest for even the most seemingly everyday knowledge with a search engine. And why not? This method is the easiest, most direct way to obtain such information.

But our electronic inquiries are not really as private as many of us think. While we may receive a wealth of effortlessly attainable knowledge from search engines, what we do not realize is the wealth of effortlessly attainable knowledge the search industry also receives on us.

According to a science and technology Web site Playfuls.com, America Online, the fourth most popular search engine, recently made a blunder that allowed the public to browse the search patterns of 658,000 Internet users over the course of three months. An unauthorized AOL staff member released the data with the intention of providing researchers with the means for coming up with better search tools. AOL has since removed the information, but large amounts of it are still circulating on the Internet, according to the Aug. 21 issue of USA Today. And while AOL has apologized for the availability of such data, the real regret should be that records like these even exist.

“Nothing ever invented – not the diary, not reality TV, not MySpace pages – gives us such a raw imprint of our thoughts, desires, needs and impulses as search engines,” said Kevin Maney, USA Today Technology columnist, in a recent issue.

And while AOL is the only search giant to have let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, it certainly is not the only engine recording the entries of its users. Both Yahoo and MSN have given search data to the government, according to USA Today.

Search records can also be sold to advertisers who will specifically target an audience based on the interests that their searches so explicitly reveal. Advertisers’ intimate knowledge of potential consumers gives them the opportunity to get a head start on their competition.

But allowing anyone to take advantage of such personal data seems unethical, if not eerie, and the use of these records could easily spin out of control. Such power in the wrong hands could have cataclysmically devastating effects.

And while the records of our intimate quandaries and impulse thoughts are not attached to actual names, with the amount of personal information about ourselves we unknowingly surrender, they may as well be.

“With enough puzzle pieces, in this case, it’s very possible to figure out who someone is,” said Jim Harper of the Cato Institute.

Storing data about searchers is an invasion of privacy and should be made illegal.

I shudder to think what a hacker could do with access to such neatly organized banks of private information.

The current liberties of the search industry are not only disturbing, but also dangerous. Because it is legal for search engines to collect and store such data, our most private thoughts and personal information are completely accessible – at least to those crafty enough who know how to exploit it.

Opinion editor Jordan Cohen is a sophomore English major from Lewisville, N.C.