MarketingVOX: If you search on the Ask network, you can be rest assured that no one will ever lay eyes on any incriminating search terms you enter. Available by the end of the year, the AskEraser feature will purge all search data.
On a medium with less and less privacy, Ask.com has made the promise to its users that it will not store data on search queries, according to The Globe and Mail. Though search engines have privacy terms, they are powerless to legal subpoenas.
However, because Google is Ask’s advertising partner, Google has the ability to store Ask’s search queries. Further, since search terms appear in the web address sent to Ask, ISPs could retain queries as well. Ask plans to review contracts with Google and other third parties to limit what they could do with the info hoping this will start a chain reaction to boost user privacy online.
Already, a small search engine called Ixquick purges all data within 48 hours, and Ask users will get the same privacy with AskEraser. Even without the tool, Ask has joined Google in only holding data for 18 months.
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