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Google Privacy The Internet

Inside Neeva, the Ad-Free, Privacy-First Search Engine From ex-Googlers (fastcompany.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan helped turn Google into an ad giant. Now they're starting over with a service whose only customers are its users. From a report: A new search engine? One that people have to pay to use? At first blush, it may seem like a textbook example of a startup idea destined never to get anywhere. By definition, any new search engine competes with Google, whose 90 percent-plus market share leaves little oxygen for other players. And we've been accustomed to getting our search for free since well before there was a Google -- which might make paying for it sound like being expected to purchase a phone book. But Neeva is indeed a new search engine, officially launching today, that carries a subscription fee.

Though it's extremely similar to Google in many respects -- with a few twists of its own -- it dumps the web giant's venerable ad-based business model in the interest of avoiding distractions, privacy quandaries, and other compromises. It's free for three months -- long enough for users to grow accustomed to it without obligation -- and $4.95 a month thereafter. Apps for iPhones and iPads, and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Brave, are part of the deal. Neeva may have a certain whiff of improbability about it, but its cofounders, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, are the furthest thing from naifs. Two long-time Google executives with more than a quarter-century of experience at the web giant between them, they have an insider's understanding of how it operates. Moreover, about 30 percent of the roughly 60-person staff they've assembled at Neeva consists of ex-Googlers, including Hall-of-Famers such as Udi Manber (a former head of Google search) and Darin Fisher (one of the inventors of Chrome). They've also secured $77.5 million in funding, including investments from venture-capital titans Greylock and Sequoia.
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Inside Neeva, the Ad-Free, Privacy-First Search Engine From ex-Googlers More

Inside Neeva, the Ad-Free, Privacy-First Search Engine From ex-Googlers

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  • nothing about nothing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GoTeam ( 5042081 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @03:50PM (#61534880)
    I'm not sure I'd pay $5 a month for a search engine service. Also, why should I believe them when they say they'll protect my privacy? Search engines need a fix and I'm glad they're trying something new.

    • Re:nothing about nothing (Score:4, Interesting)

      by theskipper ( 461997 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @04:31PM (#61534992)

      Well, I'd pay $60 a year in a heartbeat with your caveat about privacy satisfied. The problem is itemizing all the ways privacy are exploited these days, then seeing if all of those ways are covered by the legalese in the privacy statement. A herculean task obviously.

      Having said that, the privacy page is pretty readable and to my layman's eye there didn't appear to be any obvious gotchas, and included an automatic history deletion statement too (90 days).

      Of course the bottom line is whether the results are good. But given how low the bar is compared to Bing (as useful as nipples on a guy) and DDG (close but no cigar), Neeva's pedigree might get them to an acceptable level of quality.

      Going to give the trial period a shot, fingers crossed.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is why the mandatory informed opt-in requirement of GDPR is so great.

        If they were based in the EU you could be sure that they were not using search data in any way that they hadn't made extremely clear to you and obtained opt-in consent for, beyond what is needed for the basic search results.

        And if they lied there would be consequences, possibly quite severe ones.

        Default legal protection is the way to go, not trying to write a contract that enumerates all the possible abuses.

        • Well said, it's the way it should work and it appears they're not afraid to back it up by actually issuing fines. Not holding my breath for that to ever work out here.

    • Re:nothing about nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nabeel_co ( 1045054 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @06:09PM (#61535264) Homepage

      To add to your point, not only will they be able to collect search and browsing history, but unlike google, every user will be associated with a full name, full address, and full payment info... That's WAY more info than Google ever collected unless you were fully bought into their eco-system.

      What's more, how will they improve search? Will they get feedback from the users search patterns to improve? Doesn't that negate the privacy because our data will be actively getting stored and processed? It just takes one breach, or one change of their terms-of-service, and we'd be fucked, having paid all that money for nothing.

      Seems sus af.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      Also, why should I believe them when they say they'll protect my privacy?

      Another way of asking this is "why should I believe anybody at all"? That doesn't get you very far. On the surface, a search engine that is ad supported monetizes your privacy and a search engine that isn't .. doesn't need to. So there's a reason.

      If you're looking for absolute certainties, life doesn't offer any. But if you're a normal human being, you base your behavior on "good enough" and "probably" every second of every day.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Not worth it too small a piece of the computer use platform. I will not pay $1,000 a month to be connected. Every little piece of the internet demanding more money.

      You need to do bundles, a utility suite of internet tools, not just one. People will not pay for just search, so you need to add in more. So email and personal web site hosting, virus and phishing protection, throw in some chat and forum and web games. Then some more off to the side stuff like, FOSS hosting and distribution (for your subscribed

  • Interesting (Score:3)

    by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @03:55PM (#61534902)

    So it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I'd spend $5 a month for that, and I'm pretty dang sure I'm more likely than average. I wonder what part of the market they need to capture to make this fly.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BeerFartMoron ( 624900 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @04:02PM (#61534922)

      I wonder what part of the market they need to capture to make this fly.

      The part of the market that wants to protect their online privacy so much that they'll tell their credit card company, and all the folks that their credit card company sells their data to, all about it.

      Yeah, I don't get it either. Install an ad blocker and use StartPage [startpage.com] or DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com] if you want ad-free private search.

      • Install an ad blocker and use StartPage [startpage.com] or DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com] if you want ad-free private search.

        You left out the part about using a VPN

        • Install an ad blocker and use StartPage [startpage.com] or DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com] if you want ad-free private search.

          You left out the part about using a VPN....

          ...and a regularly updated HOSTS file & JS whitelist. :)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jemmyw ( 624065 )
      The part of the market that gives them $77.5 million. This just seems like a way to collect some funding.

  • If there is a money trail, it's not privacy first (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @03:59PM (#61534914)
    I wonder what kind of anonymous payment they intend to realize. Because with any kind of payment that leaves a trail of personal data, the privacy of such a paid service is much worse than "ad-financed" search engines.

    Also, I like many people have no problem with search services displaying advertisements - as long as those consist purely of static text and images, are served by the web-site I went to (not by some 3rd party), and involve no code execution, or any means of "data harvesting".

    • Also, I like many people have no problem with search services displaying advertisements - as long as those consist purely of static text and images, are served by the web-site I went to (not by some 3rd party), and involve no code execution, or any means of "data harvesting".

      Fucking this!

    • Plus, investments from venture-capital titans? Too much conflict there to be credible

    • >the privacy of such a paid service is much worse than "ad-financed" search engines.

      How so?

      Neeva: they know who you are and your credit card company knows you subscribe. I don't feel the need to keep private that I use search engines.

      Google: every search you make and every click through you do gets recorded for the long term and used in whatever way makes money. And they know who you are, and your credit card company can make a good guess you use them.

      I would rather be the customer than the product.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Neeva: they know who you are and your credit card company knows you subscribe. I don't feel the need to keep private that I use search engines.

        Google: every search you make and every click through you do gets recorded for the long term and used in whatever way makes money. And they know who you are, and your credit card company can make a good guess you use them.

        I would rather be the customer than the product.

        And how do you know Neeva isn't tracking you? Sure they may not be doing anything with the informat

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I doubt they bother keeping your clicks long term. That kind of quickly becomes worthless.

        The classic example often cited on Slashdot is when you buy something but then keep getting ads for it long after you made the purchase. Ads are only relevant to your current interests most of the time, not historical ones.

        As for being the customer rather than the product, Google will happily take your money too. Paying doesn't mean they aren't also monetizing your data, they can easily do both.

    • I am even willing to publish a bunch of keywords I am interested in. But, no moving images, no audio, static text and hyper links. Thats all.

  • Thank God! Now I don't have to pay for DuckDuckGo anymore. Whew!

  • What kind of crack are you all smoking. There is no way I am paying $5 a month for search results.

    Not only that, it is shit. Search for something, didn't find it. The UI/UX is bad. Has a similar rewards program as Bing. There is no reason to switch to this from DDG.

  • I am willing to pay $5 a month to protect my privacy. I would even pay $25. But only doing Google is NOT enough.

    I would need protection from spying from:
    Google, Amazon, Facebook, Email, my ISP, Twitter, Instagram.

    And by protection I do not mean just keeping the info I type in, but the info I gave out to friends - including my phone number, address, email, name.

    Just because I gave my friends that info does NOT mean they can give it to Facebook or anyone else.

    • > Just because I gave my friends that info does NOT mean they can give it to Facebook or anyone else.

      It does, though. There are no technical or legal barriers to them doing so.

      It's creepy, and your friends may be dumb or just bad friends, but all that info should be considered public now, from a security standpoint.

      Take countermeasures if needed.

  • Some days ago was other search engine...

  • WhatsApp charged US$1 PER year and made their money even before FB got them.

    Neeva should do that and I can guarantee that they will make their money right away.

    Imagine a billion users...

  • then they will know every search that I do over all my devices and locations as I need to sign in to use them. They will know an email address for me, a credit card and prob more that I must give them to sign up. What will they do with this information ? Do not say "nothing", do you really believe what corporats say ? Who will they give this to ? It is a USA corporation so Uncle Sam can wave the Patriot Act [wikipedia.org] at them and grab everything.

    • Do you really think google doesn't already know all that shit? The point is if you pay money, contract law can be used to sue the crap out of them if they violate their terms of service, data retention policy, or even their advertising claims. And if they have a lot of users, that creates the prospect of a class-action lawsuit which they definitely would NOT want. The whole problem with free services is the ridiculous TOS and the fact that since you are receiving the service for free, your only recourse is

  • Like the way my mobile plan gives me streaming services....

  • See subject for the minimum criteria for anything considering itself a paid privacy-preserving service.

  • Making the world a better place, Making the world a better place, Making the world a better place, etc.

  • I don't want a "privacy-first" engine.

    I want an engine that gives me good results. Anyone can do a privacy-first engine, and the market is saturated with Bing proxies that claim to be "private". So, what is your value proposition besides that, especially at $5/month vs free, you definitely need to deliver.
    The big one is "no ads", understandable but a little weak. An ad blocker can to that too. And in fact, it is the unfortunate things with ad blockers. Ad blockers are a great tool against ads, but because t

  • The only way I'm paying for a search engine is if I get white glove treatment that actually solves my real problems. I regularly run queries that return zero results on Google. In other words, I hit the end of the unified, collective knowledge of 7.5 billion people and the world's largest search engine at least a half-dozen times per month. Privacy would be a nice touch but is largely irrelevant when the scale and scope of the limitations of Google Search are a far greater issue.

    So for the really tough s

  • Their mattresses example looks like advertising for mattresses to me. The first recommendation prominently displays a price tag.

    An ad is an ad even if it's cloaked in an 'expert' recommendation.

  • ...there was no way to manipulate the search results.

    And I would be guaranteed privacy in some way, which means there should be an independent organization doing checkups on the company, that was completely independent of the company itself, i.e. no affiliations whatsoever.

    The biggest problem for them would be to get all the search results. Bing has tried for years, and can still not provide the same amount of search resuts as Google can.

    • Afterthought...

      I read their terms of service, and it doesn't look good for them (or their users), pretty much giving them free rights to your data and their 3rd party partners, and you're being subjected to "selected" partners, etc.

      Nah, I wouldn't use them at all. And btw. It's only available in the U.S. at the moment.

      • I had a look at the terms of service, I don't see where it says that, here is perhaps the relevant bit:

        7(b) Permissions to Your User Data. By making User Data available through the Services, you hereby grant to Neeva a non-exclusive, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, host, reproduce, modify, and distribute your User Data solely to host, operate, provide and improve the Services and other related product and services and otherwise as directed by you./quote 'Services' being the website, apps, etc. I agree, the potential of abuse is greater but I don't see it spelled out there.

  • Yeah, people will pay for a search engine on the 'promise' that the company will never, ever spy on us.

    Like Google's "Do no evil". Uh-huh.

    As I said, DOA.

  • I must say I find many of the arguments against Neeva on here to be... weird.

    Sure, they have potential to sell my data... like ANY company on the net I do business with.

    But come on, people on here act like Google still had search results instead of ads vaguely carrying similar words you entered into the search bar.

    Unless I get some fact like population of a country directly answered as the first result, any useful information as a result to a search term of even light complexity usually takes me on page two

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quall ( 1441799 )

      I see it as a useless service unless their customers have also stopped using all other google products. Even then, what about other social media companies that exploit privacy. They'd have to stop using them all, and then pay for this service to search the internet.

      It's not for me, especially when I can go with something like Duck Duck Go instead. Good luck to them on the effort though.

  • If they could get a copy of the Usenet archives with non-broken search I'd pay for it just for that.

  • 3. Changes to these Terms or the Services. We may update the Terms or the Service from time to time in our sole discretion.

    This is by ex-Googlers, yeah? So we can expect them to change on a dime once they reach critical mass. Bye bye privacy first, hello moar money?

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