Will Privacy Sell?

DeeQ writes "Ask.com is betting that it will. The search engine is working on a service called AskEraser that will attempt to obscure the searches a user enters into the site. 'Some privacy experts doubt that concerns about privacy are significant enough to turn a feature like AskEraser into a major selling point for Ask.com. The search engine accounted for 4.7 percent of all searches conducted in the United States in October, according to comScore, which ranks Internet traffic. By comparison, Google accounted for 58.5 percent, Yahoo for 22.9 percent and Microsoft for 9.7 percent.'" We first discussed this project back in July.

Comments

results are more important

[syrinx]

If I can't find what I'm looking for, I don't care if nobody knows about it.

Heck, I can put up a search engine that I guarantee will not record anything you search for. Also, every result will be the "badger badger mushroom" song.

Re:results are more important

[ByOhTek]

And it will still produce better results than Ask, with one query that actually gets useful results!

Re:results are more important

[Odiumjunkie]

> If I can't find what I'm looking for, I don't care if nobody knows about it.

Agreed. Results are paramount.

I'd rather choose my favourite search engine based on technical merit, then take steps to protect my privacy myself. It means I get the satisfaction of not having to rely on hidden propriety code on someone else's server for my privacy.

To get around the Google big-bad-data-retention, I find that Firefox + CookieCuller + FoxyProxy + TOR works pretty well.

Sure

[Dan East]

Sure it will. I was just reading Google News, and saw this story as the top Sci/Tech headline, and thought "Hey, I forgot about ask.com. Maybe I'll run a few searches through them and see how it goes."

So whether or not the new privacy policy attracts people directly, the publicity will bring them hits for sure. Maybe even a few converts.

Dan East

Re:Sure

[Jaseoldboss]

"Hey, I forgot about ask.com. Maybe I'll run a few searches through them and see how it goes."

You go ahead, I've blocked them from my entire network on account of their connection with MyWebSearch, SmileyCentral and other spyware.

The only way to make your searches private is to do it yourself. Set the option "Accept Cookies from sites: Until I close Firefox". Then, don't forget about those Flash SOL cookies that all those video ads track you with - Add:

RMDIR "%APPDATA%\Macromedia" /S /Q

to a batch file in "Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup".

What we really need...

[RandoX]

...is a service that wipes my information out of Google. Get rid of my Tijuana pictures from Google Image Search.

Re:What we really need...

[RandoX]

Is that you, mom?

I'd rather have a decent privacy law

[schwaang]

Because in most situations in life you can't apply market pressure in favor of privacy. Your data is being sold to data brokers like Choice Point and Axciom, and after that you don't know who looks at it, why, or when.

Want to keep your internet activities private?

[RandoX]

Forget the delete cookies/history/temp files routine. Get Sandboxie.

Not just for browsers either.

Re:Want to keep your internet activities private?

[Odiumjunkie]

> Forget the delete cookies/history/temp files routine. Get Sandboxie.

That program isn't really relevent to what's being discussed here. Running programs in a sandbox or under a VM doesn't prevent Google storing data about you on their servers. The only relevent thing it might do is prevent persistant cookies between browsing sessions, but you're better off just blocking cookies from search engines in the first place. Sandboxing doesn't do anything to prevent Google storing your search terms tagged with your IP.

Re:Privacy Invasion Repeller for Sale!

[Shados]

Thats probably patented already. Sorry buddy.

You have to accept cookies

[Aram Fingal]

I just tried it out and found that you have to accept cookies from ask.com for the askEraser feature to stick. That's not surprising but it seems that you have to give up one privacy measure to get another.

Add yourself to Terrorit List

[natoochtoniket]

There really is a good reason to offer an anonymous search tool. Anyone who uses it is automatically suspect. Doesn't matter what you used it for. The fact that you did use it, at all, makes you a suspect. If we can convince all of our domestic terrorists to register themselves by using this tool, we can solve the terrorism problem.

Of course, in a perfect world, the crooked politicians will also use the same tool. It would take some serious effort to separate the politicians from the regular terrorists. But, just perhaps, we could solve both problems at once.

;-)

Simple solution: TOR

[Spy der Mann]

As long as you're only searching the web and not clicking on the results, nobody will find out what YOU searched for if you used Onion routing like TOR.

Now the hard stuff is making TOR work ONLY for Google and search sites.

Re:Simple solution: TOR

[Odiumjunkie]

> Now the hard stuff is making TOR work ONLY for Google and search sites.

No it's not. You can specify per-domain proxies with FoxyProxy, as I pointed out above.

NO! And you know why?

[mrchaotica]

Because we should get privacy FOR FREE BY DEFAULT!

cake + eating it

[spyrochaete]

If you're sufficiently annoyed at Google that you actually want to punish them for their query retention policy, I recommend the TrackMeNot Firefox extension by Daniel C. Howe, Helen Nissenbaum. It automatically submits a false query to Google x times per minute, obscuring your real queries within a torrent of crap.

Of course privacy sells!

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Chances are, your privacy is being sold right now.