On-line Search
What a person looks for on-line says a lot about that person. To get an understanding for the value of this information, consider that Google was established as a world power simply on the basis of tracking the searches made through their site. They then built upon that information to become a leading harvester of Internet participant data.
What To Do
Protecting one's self from the invasive eyes of search engines is easier than one might think.
Simply use a different search engine.
Recommended Alternative Search
| Site | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| StartPage | proxy | Searches securely using encrypted data transfer through servers in the Netherlands, where there are actual privacy laws, by submitting the search criteria only after stripping all the originating computer's identifying information. Startpage does not retain any data from the search. They have a good story to tell. It's best if we let them tell it through their site page describing the Top Ten Ways they protect internet searchers. They also have a clear and easy to read privacy policy. |
| DuckDuckGo | federated | Searches take place using data harvested from other cooperative sources like Microsoft and Yahoo! for searching on DuckDuckGo servers. Ads are drawn from an internal advertising engine so as to not pass the searcher's data off to the big profiling companies. The site has a pretty good explanation for why they should be used for search with a lot of supporting information. The DuckDuckGo privacy policy says it like it is. |
| Blippex | community | The Blippex search engine is an innovative, paradoxical, strategy that uses the very data tracking techniques that are undermining the Internet to build a positive search experience. Blippex's very existence is dependent on maintaining the trust of their customers. The Blippex search engine database is built and maintained through plugins site participants add to their browser's that report every site visited back to the Blippex servers as truly anonymized data. This means that the data searched is always relevent. It also means the Blippex team is on a razors edge in needing to maintain the trust of their participant community. Steve was skeptical until he exchanged emails voicing his suspicions with the company founders Max Kossatz and Gerald Bäck. |