Privacy: The new search competitive edge?
Updated below: Search giants are upping the ante on the privacy front.
Not to be outdone by Google's privacy policies Microsoft is reportedly making all search information anonymous after 18 months, according to Reuters.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Yahoo will follow suit. And Ask.com announced a feature called AskEraser, which will nuke search histories. Ask said on July 19:
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.
The end goal for Ask, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google is to reach an industry standard for keeping search histories.
Personally, I hope the effort to form an industry standard stalls. If there's no standard search engines will try to outdo each other on the privacy front. If we're lucky search histories on file will get closer to zero.
Updated: The Microsoft and Ask.com statement is out. There's more on Techmeme.
Microsoft and Ask are calling for "the industry to develop global privacy principles for data collection, use and protection related to searching and online advertising."
The nutshell of the statement says:
Microsoft and Ask.com are proposing that leading search providers, online advertising companies and privacy advocates convene to engage in an active dialogue to discuss privacy considerations posed by the proliferation of online advertising and search. The goal of the dialogue is to determine ways that the industry can work cooperatively to define privacy principles that take these new considerations into account. The companies will provide an update on their progress in September.
It'll be interesting to see how this develops. For now count me in the "this is about good PR" camp. I still maintain that the best thing that could happen here is a privacy war where each search engine ups the ante for good press (and maybe a user or two).