Privacy Becoming the New Battleground for Search Engines
Last week, Microsoft added Ask Sponsored Listings to its adManager Beta search advertising service, which is part of its Microsoft Office Live platform. This week the two companies linked arms again, but this time concerning search engine privacy measures.
Late last Thursday, Ask.com vowed to make AskEraser available to its users by the end of the year. AskEraser will enable the search engine’s users to search anonymously, which means that none of the information associated (IP addresses, search terms, etc.) with their queries will be saved by Ask.
On Monday, Microsoft aligned itself with Ask by announcing that it will also offer its users a way to prevent their search data from being used to deliver targeted ads on Microsoft sites.
Both companies also announced plans to implement a policy to delete all sensitive information related to a user’s search history after 18 months, a stance Google has already taken.
Yahoo! and AOL also recently announced that they would take this a step further and only retain personal information for 13 months. AOL says that it has been sticking to this 13-month policy since late last year but did not publicize the move.
These announcements come on the heels of Google’s decision to utilize cookies that expire after two years for users who do not use the search engine for that length of time.
AOL’s big privacy screw up in August of last year is still fresh on many Web users’ minds, and it seems that search engines are becoming more and more sensitive to the calls for higher and tighter standards from consumers and advocacy groups alike.
These recent developments seem to insinuate two things. One is that there is mounting pressure being placed on Google. This is not only because it is the largest of the big search engines and consequently possesses the greatest wealth of user data, but also because of its recent acquisition of DoubleClick, which is being scrutinized by many, including the European Union. The acquisition would hand Google even more sensitive information, which makes many uncomfortable. There is a growing sentiment that Google should be making bigger strides towards showing more respect for its users’ desired level of privacy.
Second, this may be an example of two smaller competitors attempting to merge their influences to benefit each other and to take shots at the leader. Microsoft’s Live search engine and Ask.com are the third and fourth largest search engines, according to comScore’s qSearch, so it would make sense for the two to have these small team efforts to try to gain some ground on Google and Yahoo!.
Regardless, there is some real weight behind these actions, and no one should expect this privacy issue to lose its momentum any time soon. Privacy could eventually become as important to users as the quality of search results, especially if another big privacy slip up happens.
Microsoft and Ask are encouraging privacy advocates and Web search and advertising companies (including its rivals Google, Yahoo!, and AOL) to assemble by September to discuss how the industry should be handling privacy.
Sources:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/07/23/Microsoft-Ask-
pressure-Google_1.html
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004952.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070723/tc_pcworld/
134928;_ylt=ApuTX.ynDg2QrRCpeUSR66L6VbIF
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070720/ap_on_hi_te/ask_privacy;
_ylt=AslJwZ8O56hL8XNzgTPXv1j6VbIF
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/07/20/ask-
readies-askeraser-privacy-controls
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/
AQTU068A17072007-1.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_hi_te/search_
privacy;_ylt=Ami94jXqt00pw1okfJ8eMxr6VbIF
