eBuzz - Privacy? What privacy?

Privacy? What privacy?

With the latest spam messages promising us that we can investigate anyone online, it's refreshing to learn that the search engines are backing off. A report last week by the Center for Democracy and Technology notes that search engine competition, now, is over who can offer the most privacy protection.

This is a tremendous change in policy, according to the report, from the detailed and personally identifiable records of searches that were the norm chez Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Today they're competing instead to be the most respectful of privacy, in one case giving consumers the option of having all of their search records deleted.

As reported in Press Esc:

CDT's Search Privacy Practices report details and compares the revamped privacy policies of the five largest search providers Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Ask.com and AOL while offering recommendations for both the industry and lawmakers for how to strengthen privacy protections even further.

"We hope this signals the emergence of a new competitive marketplace for privacy," CDT President Leslie Harris said. "By themselves, these recent changes represent only a small step toward providing users the full range of privacy protections they need and deserve, but if this competitive push continues it can only stand to benefit consumers."

While the Internet offers search options for both consumers and marketers that are beyond what anyone could have imagined twenty years ago, it's also important to be clear about what is being done, and why, and remember that the possession of any information has both a positive and a negative side to it.

And that's our take on the news today!

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