An appeal sent to all search engines

Nov 21, 2006 11:26 GMT  ·  By

Do you ever think that anybody can see what you were looking for on Google, Yahoo or other search engines? Well, I think this is possible so I decided to look for more information using? a search engine. After visiting many sites, I found poundprivacy.org, a site that was meant to be an open letter to all search engines to include a privacy tag for some searches.

""Pound Privacy" is a campaign to create the first standard for search engine query privacy. The implementation is fairly straightforward: If you append the phrase "#privacy" at the end of a query on any search engine or site search, your query should not be tracked by IP or cookie, and should not be made public in keyword tools. It is that simple," the owner describes his intention.

So, Russ Jones, Search Privacy Evangelist, decided to write an open letter for Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask to request them to introduce the #privacy tag. "The #privacy standard as offered by www.poundprivacy.org makes it incredibly easy for all search engines - major search engines (and potentially site searches) - to empower their users to protect their own query privacy. The standard is simple: if a user includes #privacy in a search query, the search engine should not associate that IP (or other tracking mechanism such as cookies) with the query, nor should that query be made available via public or private keyword tools such as Google Suggest or Overture Keyword Selection tool," he said.

The site offers multiple methods for making the project more popular so, if you have any intention to help, check the site and read other details.