Michael Zimmer.org

Yesterday I posted that Cuil, the supposed “Google-killer” search engine that once took pride in not keeping any logs of its users’ activities, had dramatically altered its privacy policy, effectively stripping it of the strong privacy-protecting language it originally contained. Since then, I’ve received 3 communications from Cuil.
The first was a tweet promising an email (not yet received) as well as the assertion that “For the record, we still don’t keep logs or store personal info”. It is kind of them to tell me this via Twitter, but unless their …

Remember Cuil, the search engine launched in 2008 that was supposed to be a Google-killer? Didn’t think so.
Anyway, one of Cuil’s touted competitive advantages was that it didn’t track user search queries. Its original privacy policy (dated July 27, 2008) went to great lengths to make users feel comfortable about the privacy of their search activities, opening with this impressive declaration:
Privacy is a hot topic these days, and we want you to feel totally comfortable using our service, so our privacy policy is very simple: when you search with Cuil, …

Following up on the experience of others (here, here, and here), I’ve run some test searches of my own on the hot new Cuil search engine. The results were not cool. I performed three different kinds of searchs: information-seeking, navigational, and vanity. More after the fold.

Some former Googlers have launched a rival search engine named for the Gaelic word for knolwedge, Cuil.
Cuil (pronounced like “cool”), which claims to have an index three times the size as Google and ten times as Microsoft, aims to provide a difference kind of search experience than its friends in Mountain View:
Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, …