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Will Privacy Sell?
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:47 PM
from the one-of-the-few-things dept.
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.
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Search Sites Unveil Privacy Plans 34 comments
Klaidas sends us word of BBC coverage of action on privacy by the top four search sites. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask have introduced plans to reduce the data they store and how long they store it. From the article: "The rush to improve privacy policies was started by Google in March when it announced it would start deleting the final parts of the individual address it collects from each user's computer after 18 months... Microsoft is expected to make a similar announcement to separate the identifying address and other data from searches after 18 months. The information will be held for longer if users request it. Yahoo said it would delete identifying addresses and cookies after 13 months... Ask is taking the most radical step by unveiling plans for a tool called AskEraser which, it claims, will let people tune whether data is gathered about them on a search-by-search basis."
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Technology: Google Keeps What Ask.com Erases 59 comments
Stony Stevenson passed us an ITNews article on the AskEraser service we discussed the other day. The Ask.com service is intended to obscure a user's search data - but does it really go away? "AskEraser may remove user search query data from Ask.com's servers, but deleted data may live on, in part at least, on Google's servers. That's because Google delivers the bulk of the ads on Ask.com, based on information provided by Ask ... It may well use the information for other purposes, such as measuring the responsiveness of its systems. However, Leeds said he could not disclose the specifics of the contractual relationship between Ask and Google."
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results are more important (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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lol.
The sad thing is, I'm cheering them on... I want them to get it right.
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Re:results are more important (Score:4, Informative)
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 [mozilla-europe.org] + CookieCuller [mozdev.org] + FoxyProxy [mozdev.org] + TOR [torproject.org] works pretty well.
Parent
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Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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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:
to a batch f
Privacy Invasion Repeller for Sale! (Score:2)
I have just as much evidence that my Privacy Invasion Repeller works as Ask can produce for their so-called privacy protection, but mine covers every search engine ever made!
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The advantage of your rock is that its hard to imagine a set of circumstances where it might sell my personal data to spammers. Or to turn it over to various data mining spooks. Or burn everyone's data to an unencrypted cd and "accidentally" mail it to the wrong address. Or go bust and have its data bought by a company not that declines to honour agreements made by Ask.com. Or just plain lie about its privacy policy.
Not that I plan in investing in your scheme, either. But if I had to choose one, the roc
What we really need... (Score:3, Funny)
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Well, what I really need is a service that gives me billions of dollars for sitting on my ass, makes me irresistable to lithe young women, ends world hunger and punches Bill O'Reilley in the face every six seconds.
See? I can suggest lots of cool things if we disregard logic and common sense.
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I'd rather have a decent privacy law (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy? No way. (Score:1, Insightful)
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You *never* have an expectaion of privacy on the web, unless you encrypt everything.. and even then you're trusting that the other end isn't going to sell your data anyway (probably true for a bank, but joe random internet site would sell it in a heartbeat).
In a heartbeat. (Score:2)
I'll be watching this and hopefully it's going work as advertised.
Want to keep your internet activities private? (Score:3, Informative)
Not just for browsers either.
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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
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You have to accept cookies (Score:4, Informative)
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The cookie is reasonably innocuous, though.
Name: askeraser
Content: "Tue 11 Dec 2007 18:10:15 UTC"
That date might be unique enough to track you, but on the other hand, it's unlikely to be more unique than your IP address, and you can probably write a script to randomize it within your cookies.txt every so often.
Add yourself to Terrorit List (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
the fact is... (Score:2)
This means to move up they have to differentiate themselves enough to get people to try them and hopefully stick with them. The only people who benefit from propagating "business as usual" are the googles/yahoos.
Simple solution: TOR (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the hard stuff is making TOR work ONLY for Google and search sites.
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No it's not. You can specify per-domain proxies with FoxyProxy, as I pointed out above [slashdot.org].
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Furthermore, these solutions will be useless for Phone using android. If Google can get your queries at the OS level, proxy won't bring any kind of privacy.
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Assuming you've taken logical precautions about the content of your searches, for example not ego-surfing in the middle of the searches you wanted to keep private.
NO! And you know why? (Score:4)
Because we should get privacy FOR FREE BY DEFAULT!
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You could change the problem somewhat, and start claiming that your shopping history is, lega
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Option 0: Don't use a search engine, do get privacy. Privacy for free, by default.
Option 1: In exchange for surrendering some privacy, you get to use a quality search engine only marginally annoying ads.
Nothing is free. When a car dealership provides you with oil changes for life, the cost is built into the price. The only difference is what you perceive to be the baseline price (and, yes, the default). If you don't like the idea of being charged for privacy, think of it as not being paid for giving up yo
cake + eating it (Score:5, Informative)
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Moreover I'm trying to make more coherent queries (using keywrods extracted from RSS flows). See the site for more details and do not hesitate to post comments.
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You don't necessarily pay as much as the maximum you specify. AdWords works like an au
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It's called "clickfraud", it's possibly illegal, certainly against the Google terms of service, and a well-known problem.
What is the price of privacy? (Score:1)
As my plug-in click also on ads, it may cost money to Google since advertiser won't be happy to be charged for simulated click. So, if tomorrow Google asks you to pay the bill for your privacy, how much are you willing to pay?
I'm not sure we'll agree to pay for all the services if they had
Firefox + Adaptive Referer Remover (Score:1)
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It sold me ... (Score:1)
rsync.net corporate philosophy [rsync.net]
rsync.net Warrant Canary [rsync.net]
Not only do I pay a small premium for this stance on their part, but I rave about thier product and support all the time. This business model _does sell_ and it breeds _more sales over time_. Business owners need to know this, and we as consumers need to vote with our dollars to ensure that they do.
Just don't log it! (Score:2)
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1) This search query was used 10 times, link a was clicked 5 times, and link b was clicked 5 times.
2) This search query was used 10 times, but 9 of those 10 times, people from the user's region really wanted to narrow down the serach query with this keyword (so suggest that to them), and when THAT query was performed, people with that users demographics were 85%
Of course privacy sells! (Score:5, Funny)
It'll make a "HUGE" difference (Score:2)
Ask.com doesn't have to beat Google, just increase their profits at a greater rate than their expe
Oh Look! It's a Dupe. (Score:2)
"But underscoring how difficult it is to completely erase one's digital footprints, the information typed by users of AskEraser into Ask.com will not disappear completely. Ask.com relies on Google to deliver many of the ads that appear next to its search results. Under an agreement between the two companies, Ask.com will continue to pass query infor
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