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> I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result. It isn't sufficient to avoid being logged in — you have to ensure

> I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result. It isn't sufficient to avoid being logged in — you have to ensure that the search strings alone, grouped by IP address or some other signal, aren't enough to identify you. When AOL publicly released an archive with 20 million search strings in 2006, many users got exposed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release There's also the issue of a site's Terms of Service when not logged in, which may allow an AI to be trained on your interactions — which could potentially bleed compromising information into the generative results other people see.

citizenpaul 1y ago
Anonymized data is basically a smokescreen. With metadata points in the hundreds it is trivial to backtrack the origin of almost any information. The only real anonymized data is no information kept at all.
tptacek 1y ago
Oh, I know, I'm just adding that detail to say that I'm not dismissive of the threat we're talking about. It's a real threat, I'm just saying it's an old one.
- rectang 1y ago
  Which search and AI services reliably discard logs? It's my understanding that if you configure your Google account correctly, logged-in searches will be discarded. However, I'm less certain about whether Google retains data for non-logged-in queries which allows for aggregation by IP address, etc. Then there's DuckDuckGo, which at least the way it's advertised, implies that they discard search strings. Their "duck.ai" service stores prompt history locally, but they claim it's not retained on their machines, nor used for training by the various AI providers that duck.ai connects to[1]. In contrast, ChatGPT by default uses non-logged-in interactions to train their model[2]. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-... [2] https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-faq https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-fa...

citizenpaul 1y ago

Anonymized data is basically a smokescreen. With metadata points in the hundreds it is trivial to backtrack the origin of almost any information. The only real anonymized data is no information kept at all.

tptacek 1y ago

Oh, I know, I'm just adding that detail to say that I'm not dismissive of the threat we're talking about. It's a real threat, I'm just saying it's an old one.

rectang 1y ago
Which search and AI services reliably discard logs? It's my understanding that if you configure your Google account correctly, logged-in searches will be discarded. However, I'm less certain about whether Google retains data for non-logged-in queries which allows for aggregation by IP address, etc. Then there's DuckDuckGo, which at least the way it's advertised, implies that they discard search strings. Their "duck.ai" service stores prompt history locally, but they claim it's not retained on their machines, nor used for training by the various AI providers that duck.ai connects to[1]. In contrast, ChatGPT by default uses non-logged-in interactions to train their model[2]. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-... [2] https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-faq https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-fa...