Verizon Media Launches OneSearch, a Privacy-Focused Search Engine (venturebeat.com) 58
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Verizon Media, the media and digital offshoot of telecommunications giant Verizon, has launched a "privacy-focused" search engine called OneSearch. With OneSearch, Verizon promises there will be no cookie tracking, no ad personalization, no profiling, no data-storing, and no data-sharing with advertisers.
With its default dark mode, OneSearch lets you know that Advanced Privacy Mode is activated. You can manually toggle this mode to the "off" position which returns a brighter interface, but with this setting deactivated you won't have access to privacy features such as search-term encryption. With Advanced Privacy Mode on, links to search results will only be shareable for an hour, after which time they will "self-destruct" and return an error to anyone who clicks on it. More broadly, the OneSearch interface is clean and fairly familiar to anyone who has used a search engine before. But at its core, it promises to show the same search results to everyone given that it's not tailored to the individual. In the OneSearch privacy policy, Verizon says it it will store a user's IP address, search query, and user agent on different servers so that it can't draw correlations between a user's specific location and the query that they've made.
"Verizon said that it will monetize its new search engine through advertising; however, the advertising won't be based on browsing history or data that personally identifies the individual -- it will only serve contextual advertisements based on each individual search," reports VentureBeat. OneSearch is currently available on desktop and mobile web, with mobile apps coming later this month.
With its default dark mode, OneSearch lets you know that Advanced Privacy Mode is activated. You can manually toggle this mode to the "off" position which returns a brighter interface, but with this setting deactivated you won't have access to privacy features such as search-term encryption. With Advanced Privacy Mode on, links to search results will only be shareable for an hour, after which time they will "self-destruct" and return an error to anyone who clicks on it. More broadly, the OneSearch interface is clean and fairly familiar to anyone who has used a search engine before. But at its core, it promises to show the same search results to everyone given that it's not tailored to the individual. In the OneSearch privacy policy, Verizon says it it will store a user's IP address, search query, and user agent on different servers so that it can't draw correlations between a user's specific location and the query that they've made.
"Verizon said that it will monetize its new search engine through advertising; however, the advertising won't be based on browsing history or data that personally identifies the individual -- it will only serve contextual advertisements based on each individual search," reports VentureBeat. OneSearch is currently available on desktop and mobile web, with mobile apps coming later this month.
No need (Score:2, Offtopic)
I would be happy if Verizon would just ensure my FIOS service delivered at least have of my designated speed tier and didnâ(TM)t go down once a week.
Re: (Score:2)
You're about the only person who has problems with FiOS. Call them up and say something is wrong. I've had maybe 10 minutes of downtime in 10 years and my speeds (100/100) are what they say. I was testing out a new router box and the upload speed was reaching 115Mbit.
Re: No need (Score:2)
Have you ever called Verizon?
It is an hours long affair, repeating the same thing over and over again who simply follow some script designed to simply give up.
It works. I have called them many times. I do not even bother anymore.
Re: No need (Score:1)
Re: No need (Score:2)
It is not my equipment. They own it. They provide it.
You go first (Score:4, Informative)
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that's the problem. How can you trust Verizon's "privacy-focused search engine" when they have proven that they don't give a shit about your supposed "privacy".
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
And by going to those other ones, they now get their data or identity stolen and pay the price. There are so many fly by night operations out there that the provider itself needs to have a background check done on it before you would want to use their products.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is the real thing to get from that announcement, make no mistake, privacy is becoming a real product. Only the poor will lose their digital privacy and being poor it is not worth that much spending marketing on them outside of junk food and beer. Certainly though privacy is becoming a real product and an expectation when you are buying product, for free not so much but definitely when people are spending money they are starting to expect privacy, it wont be much longer and they will start demanding it.
Re: (Score:3)
>"We already have Duck Duck Go,"
And startpage.com and toki.com and others. Why anyone would trust Verizon, of all entities? I actually trust them LESS than Google, but fear Google much more, only because they are SO huge and dangerous in comparison.
So, no thanks, Verizon.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm a DuckDuckGo user - but uBlock still finds something to block on it. It doesn't one OneSearch, which I find interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like they've got one of those wee images, loading from tracking.duckduckgo.com, reporting the browser and a few other things.
Seems to fit in with DDG's stated objectives and privacy focus, assuming they're not doing anything "interesting" with the data.
Only 1 choice?? (Score:2, Troll)
With its default dark mode, OneSearch lets you know that Advanced Privacy Mode is activated. You can manually toggle this mode to the "off" position which returns a brighter interface, but with this setting deactivated you won't have access to privacy features such as search-term encryption
Oh, so in order to be "private", I have to endure useless dark mode, the kind that leaves artifacts on my retinas for a while when I read white-on-black text?
That's my only option??
Well, FUCK YOU very much for the choice, Verizon!
Re: (Score:1)
Best laugh I've had all day (Score:5, Funny)
Verizon and Privacy
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
It's an intelligence test! (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you dumb enough to trust Verizon?
Seriously, if you trust these assholes after everything they have pulled then you deserve the bad shit they're about to send your way.
Re: (Score:3)
Is there any sign that Verizon ever hosted an NSA fiber optic tap rooms as AT&T does?
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... [nytimes.com]
Wikipedia describes an infamous example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm not insisting that Verizon is innocent of such espionage collaborage, but merely that AT&T has proven very cooperative with illegal and even unconstitutional espionage against US citizens by the NSA.
Re: (Score:2)
Who in their right mind would trust any of the major US telecom companies? They are all scoundrels that have taken billions and then never delivered on their promise to roll out rural internet, multiple times.
If you believe Verizon... (Score:5, Funny)
Please contact me at once. I can offer you a wonderfully advantageous price on this bridge near where I live that stretches from San Francisco to Marin County. It's worth a mint, since you can collect the tolls from the heavy vehicle traffic which uses it.
Re:If you believe Verizon... (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent! I have just been informed that I have won the Zimbabwe lottery, to the tune of 100 trillion ZWD, and I would be most interested in your bridge!
Re: (Score:2)
If I send you a check for 200 trillion, can you send me back the change?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. I can afford to lose $35. :-D
Re: (Score:2)
The "send me back the change" scam is a popular one. Someone pays for an Ebay sale, or a deposit on an aparment, with an over-large check "because they're in another country and it would help with exchange rates". The check clears. The victim sends the change. Then the check bounces and the victim is out the price of the check they sent.
It's particularly popular to find a second victim, who is "making money on the internet!" by getting a small fee to launder money. It's a large percentage of the lower-cost
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. I know. And I was just having fun with you by pointing out that 200 trillion ZWD is pocket change. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
I've reached Peak Lie for this month (Score:2)
Wow, I don't think I've read anything this month (therefore this decade) so far that has so many lies in it. This probably even exceeds a Facebook press release for critical lie density. How goddamn stupid do you have to be to believe Verizon on anything?
Luckily this will fail, like all their other similar desperate internet failures, because just buying off the FCC and having Ajit Pai be your bitch in assless chaps isn't enough to get this sort of thing to succeed, unlike areas where they can clumsily le
LOL what a load of horseshit (Score:3)
Verizon promises there will be no cookie tracking, no ad personalization, no profiling, no data-storing, and no data-sharing with advertisers.
I'm sure they also have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn they'd love to sell you for a really incredibly low low price, too.
Fuck off Verizon, we already have DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com], it already does everything yours claims to do, we don't need your fake-ass shit.
HAHAHA... (Score:1)
X-UIDH header (Score:2)
Can you hear me now? (Score:2)
I pulled it up (Score:2)
Elizabeth Hurley and Renee Zelwiger were the top 2 search requests, when I reset, giving the new site the benefit of the doubt, the next 2 top search requests were Stephen Dorf & Express Clothing...forutitously, I don't know anything about one of those things.
Nuff said.
April 1st again already? (Score:2)
Verizon is pretty much the last company I would ever trust for privacy.
Verizon has learned the lesson of 5G (Score:5, Insightful)
Same for privacy.
Re: Verizon has learned the lesson of 5G (Score:1)
Is this in any way related to OneDrive? (Score:2)
Is this in any way related to Verizon Cloud Storage being replaced by OneDrive, or am I confusing this with Samsung Cloud Storage being shut down and replaced by Microsoft OneDrive?
Verizon Cloud Storage is currently run by Synchronoss Technologies [synchronoss.com]. Sorry if I'm mistaking Verizon Cloud with Samsung Cloud.
We do security. Dah? (Score:1)
Verizon is spending millinos of dollars on ads claiming to have 5G.
Verizon has been ROASTED in the press for lying to their customers (me included).
"privacy-focused" --- what the heck that even means is unclear.
Either you're PRO privacy and WON'T release things, or you're not.
Pro-privacy means "well if if it works out we'll tryi this privacy gig".
GOOD BYE VERIZON.
Verizon will NEVER EVER be the privacy-anything of antying.
#
Privacy-focus doesn't work, unless ... (Score:2)
... you arw a trustworthy entity yourself.
I wonder how they got the idea that they are that!
What's next? NSA submitting a security framework for the Linux kernel? lol. It's not like even any blackeyer is deluded enough to hallucinate conspiracy theorists everywhere that would be criticited from. ... /s
Verizon Vs Google (Score:2)
Google collects all the world data and gives access to it through APIs that prevent identification and pretext source identity.
Verizon collected a tiny bit of subscriber data and sold it wholesale to anyone who asked.
Duckduckgo is the obvious choice but in terms of privacy I trust Google far more than Verizon given a choice between the two.
Self-destructing links?!? (Score:2)
With Advanced Privacy Mode on, links to search results will only be shareable for an hour, after which time they will "self-destruct" and return an error to anyone who clicks on it.
WTF?
Must be some sort of redirect via Verizon's logging server, unless they've figured out some way to destroy third-party websites whenever someone searches for them.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they mean that if you share a search results link it will only be good for an hour that way if you try to find search results in someone's browser history and open it they will likely have expired and you will just get an error. It's not a bad idea.
After a few black eyes I'm not surprised they are trying to improve their reputation though it will likely not last long, then fade into the shadows, and be decommissioned because privacy focused search engines don't make the kind of money that pays big b
Verizon cares about your privacy (Score:3)
They clearly learned from that time in 2016 [cnet.com] when they were fined by the FCC for modifying network headers so they could track their customers and that time in 2018 [nytimes.com] when they were were fined for selling ads that targeted kids and collected their information without parental consent.
Those heady days of privacy violations are over!. 2020 is a whole new year and you can definitely trust Verizon's new search engine to respect your privacy!
Re: (Score:2)
After a few black eyes maybe they are trying to improve their reputation though if indeed it is what they claim it will probably not last long (just long enough to gain back some trust), fade into the shadows, and be decommissioned before they turn back to old habits. Like a cheating spouse "I promise I'll never do it again" and then for a while they don't, everything is great, and then they are back to cheating. (FYI Never happened to me I'm not that stupid but I know people that have taken back the spouse
Lowered expectations will help... (Score:2)
It's from Verizon, a company that doesn't believe in customer service, so if there is a problem for advertisers, it probably won't get fixed in a short amount of time. Search results will also be very questionable, so while people might be curious what the results will be, the idea of using it as your primary search engine will be limited to Verizon employees for at least the next 5-10 years.
All the king's horses (Score:2)
"Verizon says it it will store a user's IP address, search query, and user agent on different servers so that it can't draw correlations between a user's specific location and the query that they've made."
HAH! But what if those servers are connected by a NETWORK?
I tried it ... (Score:2)
... and couldn't really detect a difference from a surface level.
However, I saw no advertisements because ad blockers.
Dark DDG? (Score:2)
Sounds like DuckDuckGo, but served by the SITH rather than the Republic. Somehow, I just don't trust Verizon enough to expect this to work for long. If using a phone, just get the DDG browser and be done with it. On a computer, get Firefox and set the default search engine to DDG.
I tried it ... (Score:2)
against Google search and onesearch was not robust at all.
I look for people and while Google provides social media presence, videos, images, etc., onesearch was severely uninformative.