Ask.com and other major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft typically keep track of search terms typed by users and link them to a computer’s Internet address, and sometimes to the user. However, when AskEraser is turned on, Ask.com discards all that information, the company said.
So I checked out Ask.com. And there's the privacy eraser button in the corner and when I clicked it I got this window:
(You can click on it to enlarge it.)
But is ask.com good enough to find what you are looking for? I searched for:
what do I know Alaska blog steve
And this blog didn't show up until the second page.
When I did the same with google, What Do I Know? showed up in the first four spots. Of course, this is a blogspot blog closely tied to Google.
Anyway, I'd suggest people start trying ask.com so that the other big browswers realize that people do want privacy options. Even if that means when I check out the hits on my blog, I'll get less information about the visitors from sitemeter.
Here's what ask.com's FAQ's say about what will be erased:
What is search activity data?
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).
Return to Top
Is my search activity deleted immediately?
When AskEraser is enabled, your search activity will be deleted from Ask.com servers within a number of hours. In some instances, it may take a longer period of time for your search activity to be deleted for example when we need to run automated systems to detect and block users or automatic bots that are abusing our site (see Is there any reason Ask.com will stop deleting my search activity?)
If Yahoo had this policy in China, the government there couldn't track down who visited what sites. And this may become more important in the US too.