Case
Ask.com Won’t Tell
Ask a friend a question, and odds are he’s forgotten it by the next day. Not your friendly online search engine. Most such programs, such as Google and Yahoo!, record your online searches, along with the identity of your particular computer, for up to 18 months regardless of the topic searched. Search engine companies claim that keeping this information helps them provide better search results, prevent spam and fraud, and offer users more relevant advertising. But the policy does raise privacy concerns. “A lot of information is recorded about people online that people don’t have control over,” says the editor-in-chief of online publication Search Engine Land. “It’s time for us to get a better idea of what private information companies are keeping on us and what kind of control we have over it.”
Enter Ask.com, the fourth-largest search engine. The company is introducing AskEraser, a one-click feature appearing on the home page and all search results. AskEraser allows users to delete their own queries from Ask.com servers, including their user ID, Internet address, session ID, and text of their search terms. Like a light switch, once on, the erase feature stays on until the user turns it off again. For users who choose not to erase, Ask. com keeps the search data anonymous and does not link it to individual users.
Although services are available to mask online activities, the ability to erase them with a simple user-controlled button is innovative for its speed and accessibility. AskEraser is expected to lead the way to a new level of privacy protection in the industry, despite Google and Yahoo’s dominance of the market. Ask.com has just under a 5 percent share of the search engine market, while Yahoo! has 23 percent and Google almost 60 percent. “It’s really about building trust and the possibilities of personalization in the future,” said a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “If people trust Ask services because they have the ability to turn them off, that’s a significant move forward.”
The 18-month holding period limit at other search engines was instituted after the public pressured the companies to make search logs anonymous. Even if competitors follow the lead of Ask.com, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center says, “Over the long term, we still need appropriate legislative safeguards.” And in fact it is difficult to completely erase an electronic trail. Ask.com will continue to share some query information with Google, which uses it, with certain limits, to help shape the relevance of Ask.com’s advertising.
1. “Privacy only becomes important to the average consumer when something blows up,” says the founder of an independent research company. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
2. Do you think AskEraser will bring about industry change in the area of online privacy? Why or why not? Does it have any potential drawbacks?
