A Carnegie Mellon University lab is testing a search engine that will give you Google- or Yahoo-like results but is designed to make privacy information more apparent
“The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of privacy information in Web search engine results,” according to a blog posting by CMU grad student Janice Tsai .
The CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) is running a study of the Privacy Finder search engine interface and is offering prizes (retail gift certificates) for those who agree to use it instead of or in addition to their usual search engines for four weeks.
CUPS contends that in using Privacy Finder you will receive privacy ratings based on P3P ( Platform for Privacy Preferences Project), which enables Web sites to make clear their privacy policies. You can also easily compare those ratings vs. your preferences.
Other selling points include that CMU will collect less information about you than commercial search engines, that you won’t see ads, that info won’t be shared with commercial search engine companies or the government.
In an earlier Privacy Finder study , CMU found that online shoppers are willing to pay extra to protect personal information
Search engine companies themselves have been under pressure to strengthen their privacy policies and some progress has been cited by organizations such as the Center for Democracy and Technology , a civil liberties advocacy group. IAC Search & Media’s Ask.com search engine recently announced a feature called AskEraser that eliminates a user’s search activity information from the search company’s servers. Google has also bent to European rules regarding how long it stores data.
Other work out of the CUPS group has included an online game designed to teach Internet users about the dangers of phishing.
