Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

I was aghast to discover a few months ago the policies of search engine companies. The SEOs hold on to your searches information for inordinate periods of time. I’d read recently about a new policy by Ask.com. They are hoping their new policy will give them the edge over the giants (and you know who they are).

Jumping on the privacy bandwagon, Ask is offering users the chance to take charge of what happens with their search history.

An AskEraser link will feature prominently on the Ask.com homepage and, when enabled by the user, will delete all future search queries and associated cookie information from its servers.

The information it destroys includes IP address, user ID and session ID along with the complete text of a query.

I could wish all SEOs did such. MSN and Yahoo save the information for 18+ months, although policies bounce up and down more than stock market numbers. And when the Bush Administration demands the numbers from AOL, MSN, and Yahoo, they obediently hand it over. AOL might even broadcast that information– oopsie!

Google holds on to the info forever. Well, they say they’ve changed that to be 18 months, but who believes them?

Here’s a great comparison chart by CNet, showing the policies of the SEOs.

Moral of the story: your searches are monitored, and may be used against you. Be clean with your searches and use a variety of search engines frequently.

Eventually all the information will be condensed anyway, but at least we’re stemming the tide.