Michael Zimmer.org

Prompted by Google’s resistance to cluttering its homepage with a link to its privacy policy, I decided to take a quick tour of the major search engines to compare the relative visibility of their privacy policies.
AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have visible privacy policies on both their homepages and search results page (which is especially important if you use automatic search toolbars on browsers without visiting the homepage).
Neither Ask nor Google provide direct links to their privacy policy on their homepage or results pages.
[**UPDATE**  On June 18, 2008, Ask.com added a …

When Ask.com launched AskEraser, a new service which promises to protect user privacy by, upon request, deleting users’ search activity from Ask.com servers, I applauded the effort, but also pointed out some of its shortcomings.
The privacy advocacy group EPIC, however, took a much more aggressive position, and sent a letter to Ask.com [pdf] urging them to change Ask Eraser, noting three key problems with their implementation of this feature: (1) using Ask Eraser requires an opt-out cookie, (2) the cookie creates a quasi-unique identifier that could be used to track …

As previously discussed, Ask.com has launched AskEraser, a new service which promises to protect user privacy by, upon request, deleting users’ search activity from Ask.com servers.
Ask has put together quite an extensive help page explaining the details of AskEraser, including important caveats about the actual coverage of the service, which has some significant gaps. For example:
Where does AskEraser work and where does it not work?
AskEraser works if you come directly to Ask.com and perform a search within the Ask.com search box. If you access Ask.com through a search toolbar or …

I’m under deadline pressure currently, so very quickly:
Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills at CNet have surveyed the major search engine providers about their privacy practices related to retention of user data and behavioral targeting. Full story here, and the search engines’ actual replies here.

Excellent summary, but much remains unknown…

The title of this post is the headline from a story in today’s Wall Street Journal (non-firewall version here), detailing how the largest web search engines are starting to make changes to how they handle the data collected from their users — and how some are approaching it as a competitive advantage to try to take some air out of Google’s balloon:
Microsoft and Ask are also trying to step out in front of the issue. The companies today will announce their plans to try to bring together a broad swath …

In a bold, unilateral move, the web search engine Ask.com has announced it will soon be implementing a new product called AskEraser which promises to allow users to erase their search history:
With AskEraser, people can ensure that their search history will not be retained by Ask.com. Searchers will have easy access to AskEraser and can change their privacy preference at any time. Once selected, searchers’ privacy settings will be clearly indicated on search results pages so they always know the privacy status of their searches.
“AskEraser is a great solution …