Fergie's Tech Blog

Ask.com's Privacy Tool Tracks Users, Groups Tell Feds

Ryan Singel writes on Threat Level:

A coalition of privacy groups filed a federal complaint Saturday against Ask.com, alleging that AskEraser - the company's recently unveiled search engine history anonymization tool - doesn't actually protect users' privacy and could be used to track people when they thought they were anonymous.

The groups, which include the Electronic Privacy Information Center, are asking the Federal Trade Commission to find that Ask.com is engaged in unfair trade practices by making false promises to users. The groups want the FTC to force the company to modify the program.

Specifically, the groups charge that even when the search anonymization tool is turned on, Ask.com's advertising partners -- which include Google -- are able to see and store search terms and identifiers that tie a search to an individual.

posted by Fergie @ 1/22/2008 01:56:00 PM