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Will Privacy Sell?

Posted by Zonk on from the one-of-the-few-things dept.

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.

9 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. results are more important by syrinx · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
    1. Re:results are more important by ByOhTek · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    2. Re:results are more important by Odiumjunkie · · Score: 3, Informative

      > 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.

  2. Sure by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  3. I'd rather have a decent privacy law by schwaang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. You have to accept cookies by Aram+Fingal · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  5. NO! And you know why? by mrchaotica · · Score: 3

    Because we should get privacy FOR FREE BY DEFAULT!

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  6. cake + eating it by spyrochaete · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  7. Of course privacy sells! by SleepyHappyDoc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Chances are, your privacy is being sold right now.

    --
    Stasis is death. Embrace change.