Sphinn - Ask.com Launches AskEraser Giving Searches Ability To Search Anonymously

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Ask.com Launches AskEraser Giving Searches Ability To Search Anonymously

Went Hot: December 11, 2007 - 7:04 pm
Posted By: northrock 305 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Ask.com

When a searcher activates AskEraser, Ask will stop recording the searcher's search queries and cookie information. This information includes IP address, User ID, Session ID, and the complete query text.

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from Winooski 304 days ago #

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Pretty huge, and it's definitely helping me take Ask.com more seriously. How much longer till G and Y! follow suit?

from northrock 304 days ago #

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I want to use Ask.com because I like the interface and they are the little guy, but this AskEraser feature won't do it for me. Their index just is not fast nor complete enough to get the lastest content that is out there.

from northrock 304 days ago #

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Don't get too bold, Ask.com FAQ says: "even when Ask Eraser is enabled, we may store your search activity data if so requested by law enforcement or legal authority"

from northrock 304 days ago #

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The AskEraser feature is live now and you can see it in the top right menu of the Ask home page.

from seobrien 304 days ago #

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Interesting but how many are really concerned with their searches being tracked?

from northrock 304 days ago #

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i wonder the same thing seobrien. are people really that paranoid? are there that many people really up to something they don't want others to know about? do people really think somebody else cares what they are doing?

from SpostareDuro 303 days ago #

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Hey, this may be an annoying Newby question, but I was just wondering if this will affect tools such as WordTracker and Keyworddiscovery and such? As SEO's, will we still be able to keep track of queries so we'll know what to optimize??

Or is it just anonymity for the searchER? (dumb question fer sher...just drinking first cup of coffee. sry)

from northrock 303 days ago #

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i hadn't thought about the tools. do any of the tools use Ask data? I'm not sure. I had wondered if Ask actually dumps the query data, or just the identifying info. I can't imagine they throw away good data when they can just get rid of identifying data. the Ask faq says "search activity will be deleted" and that search activity data "includes information about the pages you visit on Ask.com, including the terms you search for, the links you click, your IP address, and any user or session identifier. When AskEraser is enabled, Ask.com will delete from our servers all references containing any single element of search activity data; query (what you searched for, clicked on, etc.), IP address (where you searched from), and user/sessions IDs (who you are in relation to previous searches)." After reading this I still wonder if anything is kept. Maybe they delete all "activity data" but they keep "query data". Then again, some simple query data of just the query terms searched for can be identifying in itself.

from SpostareDuro 303 days ago #

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Thanks for the reply Northrock.

Fyi, I checked out Keyword Discovery and it does search Ask.com's info for query info. So, it would interesting to get the 'Skinny' on how this can affect other tools data. http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/engines.html

from trellian 302 days ago #

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Hi,

KeywordDiscovery is not affected by this, as we collect the data at the browser level, not from ask directly. So our tool will not be affected by this.

Cheers

David from KeywordDiscovery.