Do Not Trust Google's Search Engine

A recently conducted study concerning the Internet search engines and the consumers who are using them to find content on websites revealed that some of the customers are not trusting search technologies and the information stored by them. The poll included 295 web searchers and was conducted by hakia.com, a beta search engine owned by hakia, Inc. 166 (62 percent) of the users voted no when they were asked if they trust search engines and the way they handle consumers' information while only 38 percent (106 persons) chose yes.

The second question was even more interesting because the visitors were asked "what is the single most important issue search engines can address to win users' trust?". 30 percent of the readers (72 persons) mentioned that they want a search engine that doesn't story any user information 47 percent of the respondents said that the search technologies should "give users access to and editing permission over the data search engines keep."

"It is not the data or cookies...it is the intent in handling them. The problem is purely in communications. Search engines must openly declare what they are doing with the data and all tracking devices, almost like a confession. Alternatively, they can ask users' permission when the data is being captured and the privacy line could be seemingly crossed. Once such clarity is exercised, then it is a fair environment," Dr. Riza C. Berkan, CEO of hakia said today.

This is quite an interesting research because the Mountain View company, owner of the best search engine on the Internet, recently announced that it reduced the anonymization period of the cookies to only two years since the latest use of the Google products. Basically, the cookies are used by the Google solutions to remember your settings and help the technologies provide better results bundled with more efficient personalization settings.