New Online Search Tool Bringing Some Privacy Back

Can't imagine the library keeping track of the books you browse in the stacks and using that information to put advertising flyers in the books you check-out or "personalize" library services to you?

How about the library sharing your book browsing information with other organizations or handing it over to the government when asked?

Well, that is exactly what happens when you use most of the major Internet search engines to browse for information.

Search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo collect, analyze and retain information about you and your search queries. Once that information is collected, it is used to target you with advertisements and "personalize" company services. It can be shared with business partners and if the government asks for it, it is often handed over.

Plus, companies like AOL have made big mistakes and released the search logs of 650,000 of its members. Many of the logs were easily linked back to an actual person.

But, Ask.com has recently announced a new feature called AskEraser. It allows users to keep their searches from being stored on Ask's servers.

Some have predicted that consumers will gladly give up their privacy if it means a web experience more closely tailored to their personal preferences. But Ask is banking that many of us still care about privacy and are more than happy to actually ask for the information we want, rather than companies targeting us with products and ads that they decide we want.

When you enable AskEraser, cookies Ask has sent to your computer are deleted along with your IP address, User ID and Session ID. Best of all, your future searches aren't stored by Ask for more than a few hours. You can turn on AskEraser by clicking the "AskEraer" link in the upper right hand corner of the Ask.com home page. AskEraser needs to be activated once every 24 months, or every time you switch browsers or computers. If you use AskEraser, some of Ask.com's site personalization features won't work because of course, those rely on tracking users.

AskEraser is not a perfect privacy solution. One glaring problem is that Ask partners with Google to supply ads for some of its searches. Because of this, it likely that in some cases Google is able to see much, if not all, of the information related to your search.

But, tools such as this and existing anonymizers like Tor, are important steps towards empowering consumers to protect their privacy online. While competing search engines collect data and claim that anonymizing the data will solve any privacy problems, Ask has given consumers an actual choice as to whether or not they want their information collected in the first place. You might want to check out the new AskEraser program and see what you think.