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December 12, 2007
Ask's Unseen Partners Aren't Losing Anything with AskEraser
This is a nice nutshell of just what it is search engines are after, where they're heading, and why Ask's AskEraser is novel but not entirely meaningful:
NYT -- As Ask Erases Little, Google and Others Keep Writing About You:
"... Google is a lightning rod for debate about privacy because it is extending so quickly into so many areas. But there are so many other companies that are far nosier about what you do online and are unafraid to exploit that information. (I wrote about this last year, and activity in targeting has gotten more intense since then.)
"From the start, Yahoo has seen itself as a company that uses data about users for the benefit of advertisers. And Yahoo already uses what you search for to pick which ads to show you on other parts of its site.
"What's more, there are advertising networks most people have never heard of (including Tacoda and Advertising.com, both owned by AOL, and BlueLithium, recently bought by Yahoo) that are in the business of collecting data about Internet users for advertising. Even creepier, Internet service providers are starting to monitor everything their users do to funnel ads to them.
"All this is not to say that there is anything wrong with what Ask is doing. Some people may well want to search on a site that says it won't remember anything about what they do. But the issues of what data is collected and how it is used is are far more relevant for Google, Yahoo, and a bunch of firms that are hidden from view."
Previously:
Posted by mhall at 5:57 PM | Add Comment
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