Fuzzy Promises

Nothing is ever as you want it to be and never as good as it seems. I should know better, but I guess I got a little giddy and naive. I trusted Ask.com to help protect my privacy when I do Internet searches. I don't have anything to hide in my searches. I'm not looking for bomb making tips. I'm not trying to find out where the next terrorist training camp will be held. I'm not looking for porn or anything else that I wouldn't want my friends or family to know about (except when I'm looking for a gift for my wife, then she can't know until after the fact).

I decided back in July to change my primary search engine to ask.com because they announced that they would be introducing a new feature that erases your search information and other normally gathered information. I trusted them to do that and to do it completely. I trusted them to do the right thing. I should have known better. Thanks to the guys at the Emergent Chaos blog I now know more about the truth. I should have done as they did and read the privacy policy but I didn't. They are boring and too long, but it would have been a good idea in this case. It seems that they are erasing your info but only from their database. They are still sending it to Google via Google ads. They say that Google is contractually limited in what they can do w/ the data, but they still have it. Why not just give it to them right up front? Google is a better search engine and if they are getting the data anyway why use Ask?

Does this mean that I'll change my primary search engine back to Google? Probably. I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm still irritated and try not to make decisions when my mind isn't clear. I guess I need to also do that when giddiness and excitement fog my thinking also.