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TopClick Touts Private Searching
EasyTarget writes, "TopClick aims to be a search engine that is very privacy respecting, no cookies, banner ads or other data harvesting. It uses a common protocol to the Google search engine that prevents session tracking or user identification. Is this the start of mainstream companies that view strong privacy as a 'product' in itself?"
Is this the start of more and more companies who view strong privacy as the product itself? No, not at all. This is a company that wants to cash in on what they see as a recent internet community backlash against people who were buying and selling personal information. I doubt that in this case privacy is the product - it's just a feature of the product meant to lure the disillusioned...
IMHO the disillusioned should realize that they are disillusioned for a reason; namely, that when it comes right down to it, companies are about profit, and if earning lots of money conflicts with protecting the consumer, then "Oh well". I'd like to see this company's privacy policy in a few years (assuming it survives that long) when it wants to go public, become more profitable, and expand all at the same time.
'Scuse me, but I'm feeling particularly bitter tonight.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
From reading others informative posts, I've discerned that TopClick as yet has no method of creating revenue. Their planned services center around providing better privacy for their (paying I assume) customers. The current search site will be discontinued (In Feb 2000, so I guess they are a bit late).
So presumably, they are just providing the search service for free to generate traffic to their site, which will later change focus to actually have some method of generating focus, and the search engine will be removed. It seems to me they would be wiser to leave the search engine running and instead add some links to entice users to take a look at their advanced services. That way they would continue to generate traffic to their site. Instead of users who find that their new favorite search engine disappeared have no intention of using the services of a company who pulled such a dirty trick on them. Just my $.02.
Spyky
Just a thought, but they have said elsewhere that they have a product they plan to announce in the future. The search site is merely part of the package. From the name "TopClick" I would assume that while they will not be tracking any personal information, they *will* be tracking the number of clicks made on each URL in the database. Presumably they plan to capitalize on this information somehow. Tracking queries in this manner ought to be fairly straightforward, but if the site gets lots of usage, they can combine the google info on best sources of information with the topclick info on most popular destinations to derrive information they can sell somehow - presumably to advertisers.
All the while completely preserving the anonymity of their users while they search. Not a bad tradeoff if they don't abuse it in any way.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Basically, you're switching because why? It uses Google (so does google), its pages are small and load fast (so does google), and it has a well-designed interface (so does google). So why did you say you were switching again?
If they called it Google, would that entice you even further to switch?
Esperandi
Ok. A new search engine. (hum)
...
Uses Google (so do I, what's your point?)
Hmm. Going away soon, according to a poster on Slashdot. (so why should I use them?)
Well, lets see what it's got under the hood...
Search for Top Click
BWAHAHAHAHA
I love it. A search engine that can't find itself!
-----
No Zen is good zen
Actually, the reverse merger with a shell company is typically a tax shelter. Merge with some defunct company with lots of losses and deduct their losses from your gains. Requires good tax lawyers.
I searched for "Stuff" as my first search on TopClick, just to see what search results look like. The results were quite interesting.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
I agree with you, except that you're wrong about google's use of cookies. Observe:
llama:~$ nc google.com 80
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 01:30:56 GMT
Server: GWS/1.6
Connection: close
Set-Cookie: ID=6011ba7756ca44bd; domain=.google.com; path=/; expires=Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT
Content-Length: 1539
Content-Type: text/html
Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 04:58:03 GMT
See the Set-Cookie header?
Even so, I mostly agree with your point that there doesn't seem to be any advantage to topclick over google, since neither one uses banner adds to help some nasty company track you. OTOH, topclick is making a point about their privacy intentions, and I like that. I'll support them for that any day, as long as they're in the same league. (and they are, since they use google:).
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
This search engine appears to have just about everything I've been looking for in a search engine:
They seem to be using the same database as Google -- I did a search for a few of my old email addresses (stuff that gets results from Google, pages that are no longer up any more), and I got the same results that I got with Google.
Plus, it's runing Apache/PHP:
(bfm4) $ HEAD
http://www.topclick.com/
200 OK
Connection: close
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 21:42:35 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) PHP/3.0.7
Content-Type: text/html
Client-Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 21:30:03 GMT
Client-Peer: 204.71.176.40:80
All in all, it looks like I'll be switching. The Bookstore has a bunch of Security related articles and books as well, categorized into secitons like Encryption, Consumer Profiling, and Spam.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
Check this out:
The Company has developed a substantial privacy-based information site with thousands of links to privacy issues, news, books and organizations. The company is constantly updating and improving this site and when it is ready for proper launch it will replace the existing search-based site as the home page and central focus of the web site in February, 2000. At such time, the existing search-based web site will be retired from service.
give me a break...
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
Okay... let's see...
...MoO!
* TopClick is "secure"... since it doesn't use cookies? Erm... when was the last time you saw Google use cookies for anything? And even if it did, just turn them off in your browser if you're worried about that.
* TopClick doesn't use banner advertising... neither does Google.
* TopClick uses Google's database indirectly... same results, slightly slower (since you ask TopClick, it asks Google, gets Google's reply and then gives it to you).
* TopClick is running under linux... so is Google.
* TopClick runs Apache... Google runs its own custom server. Wow... who cares, so long as it works?
Is it just me, or is there really no reason to switch from Google? We probably all have more trust for Google than some new group, so why make the change?
Ian explained that TopClick believes there is a substantial segment of the Net population concerned with privacy, and that at least part of that segment would be willing to pay for services that protect privacy. Thus, while the search engine will remain free, TopClick will charge for other products they plan on rolling out (such as AllowMail, which another poster mentioned).
A previous poster mentioned that he thought the name TopClick sounds particularly cheesey. While I'm not certain, I suspect that the name is intended to raise the specter of DoubleClick in your mind. Certainly for anyone concerned for their privacy, DoubleClick is never far from mind.
So basically, the deal is this: the company seems to sincerely believe (in Mr. McCallum's words) "that every single member of the online community has an inherent and indisputable right to privacy on the Internet." They are going to work to educate the Net population, through their comprehensive Privacy Center. And they believe they are among the first of a (hopefully long) stream of companies that will prove wrong all those naysayers who cluck that privacy and profit are incompatible.
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society