Would you switch your search engine to protect your privacy?
If you need to find information about something quickly, most likely, you would use a search engine to find it. Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo have dominated the industry for years and have become synonymous with web searches in general, but that may soon change. The top search engines offer free services at the cost of some user data being sold to third parties. Along with selling users data, top search engines generate revenue by using strategic advertising on websites, search results, YouTube pages and home pages. This has sparked a rise in smaller competitors who offer users more security and subscription based platforms.
Neeva is a new company that has designed a new way to search the internet. Sridhar Ramaswamy, a former Google executive, has created a subscription based search engine providing users ad-free search results and increased privacy from 3rd party trackers. Neeva is fueled by the idea that if a user pays for the service, they are a customer. If they get it for free, they’re the product. The company plans on releasing a beta version of their engine later this year and hopes to disrupt the already powerful market.
Neeva is not alone in wanting to change how people browse the internet, companies like DuckDuckGo and Startpage are big names in offering new ways to search. DuckDuckGo does not sort or sell user data and uses anti-tracking software to prevent third party websites from using cookies or collecting data. The company has gained enough recognition and support that it has secured a spot on one of the default search engine choices on iOS. DuckDuckGo still uses ads in order to earn revenue while still attracting users with a free service.
Startpage has a very similar model with a heavier focus on protecting user’s personal data from hackers. Due to the complexity and difficulty involved in the process of creating new internal search engines, some companies leverage the powerful Google products and combine it with their own product. Startpage and many other companies pay Google to use their paramount search results but then add their anti-tracking software to it.
Over the past few years privacy issues from Google and Facebook have raised public concern about how companies collect and sell personal data. Many users accept the fact that free services come at the expense of some data, but many were shocked at what is hidden in pages of fine print in company terms of service and user agreement forms. With smaller search engine companies gaining large amounts of users for their more secure functionality, it will be interesting to see how the industry leaders adjust their practice to regain market share.
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