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Almost all meta search engines use Bing or Google's data and inherit this to a greater or lesser extent. I would argue that a search engine can't be truly priv
by tweetle_beetle 6y ago
Almost all meta search engines use Bing or Google's data and inherit this to a greater or lesser extent.
I would argue that a search engine can't be truly privacy focused without independence. Mojeek is one of the only ones that falls into this category. Compare their policy with Neeva's - https://www.mojeek.com/about/privacy/ https://www.mojeek.com/about/privacy/
- falcor84 6y agoCouldn't a privacy-focused search engine potentially proxy all searches through a single Google and a single Bing "user" such that they weren't able to build a profile on any individual?
- tweetle_beetle 6y agoYes, and I suspect that's the aspirational model that is used by most. But ultimately they are at the mercy of Google and Bing's terms when they use their data. Realistically DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Yahoo, Ecosia, Lycos, etc. won't just shut down their businesses if they feel that Bing crosses a privacy line in the sand. And neither will Startpage or Ask if Google do the same. Follow the money and all that.
- zo1 6y agoYou would think, but the search engines have a tight-lid on that sort of thing via at-least terms of use. Ideally, the HTTP/proxy layer of the internet could have solved this with caching of the search URLs, but caching has pretty much been gimped thanks to "privacy", HTTPS, logins, etc. I'll add this as another data-point to my tin-foil hat explanation of why privacy and HTTPs has so heavily been forced upon us by Google et al.
- jameshush 6y agoThat’s exactly what Startpage does. Everything’s proxied on their own infra in different countries. IIRC we were the only ones allowed to do that because we had a legacy contract from Google.