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International Conference on Privacy in Statistical Databases

PSD 2010: Privacy in Statistical Databases pp 127–137Cite as

Semantic Microaggregation for the Anonymization of Query Logs

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNISA,volume 6344)

Abstract

The publication of Web search logs is very useful for the scientific research community, but to preserve the users’ privacy, logs have to be submitted to an anonymization process. Random query swapping is a common technique used to protect logs that provides k-anonymity to the users in exchange for loss of utility. With the assumption that by swapping queries semantically close this utility loss can be reduced, we introduce a novel protection method that semantically microaggregates the logs using the Open Directory Project. That is, we extend a common method used in statistical disclosure control to protect search logs from a semantic perspective. The method has been tested with a random subset of AOL search logs, and it has been observed that new logs improve the data usefulness.

Keywords

  • Incidence Matrix
  • Depth Level
  • Semantic Distance
  • Similar User
  • Similar Query

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-15838-4_12
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d’Enginyeria Informàtica i Matemàtiques, UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Països Catalans 26, E-43007, Tarragona, Spain

    Arnau Erola & Jordi Castellà-Roca

  2. IIIA, Institut d’Investigació en Intel·ligència Artificial - CSIC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Campus UAB s/n, 08193, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain

    Guillermo Navarro-Arribas & Vicenç Torra

Authors
  1. Arnau Erola
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  2. Jordi Castellà-Roca
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  3. Guillermo Navarro-Arribas
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  4. Vicenç Torra
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering and Mathematics, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy, Av. Països Catalans 26, E-43007, Tarragona, Catalonia

    Josep Domingo-Ferrer

  2. Department of Informatics, Ionian University, Plateia Tsirigoti 7, 49100, Kerkyra, Greece

    Emmanouil Magkos

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Erola, A., Castellà-Roca, J., Navarro-Arribas, G., Torra, V. (2010). Semantic Microaggregation for the Anonymization of Query Logs. In: Domingo-Ferrer, J., Magkos, E. (eds) Privacy in Statistical Databases. PSD 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6344. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15838-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15838-4_12

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