[liberationtech] World's Most Private Search Engine?

[Patrick Mylund Nielsen]

If we have learned anything from PRISM it's that words are cheap, and not
complying is difficult to impossible (without shutting down your business).
You should probably be using Tor regardless of which search engine you're
using if you're worried about your privacy.
On Aug 19, 2013 9:00 AM, "LilBambi" <lilbambi at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have used ixquick.com and startpage.com (both from the same folks) for
> years.
>
> More info here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixquick
>
> "Ixquick is a metasearch engine based in New York and the
> Netherlands.[2] Founded by David Bodnick in 1998, Ixquick is owned by
> Dutch company, Surfboard Holding BV, which acquired the internet
> company in 2000.[3]"
>
> "On July 7, 2009 Ixquick launched Startpage.com to offer a new service
> at a URL that is both easier to remember and spell. Startpage.com
> fetches its results straight from the Google search engine without
> saving the users' IP addresses or giving any personal user information
> to Google's servers."
>
> I had been using ixquick.com for quite a while when StartPage.com came
> out and was being promoted by Spy Chips author Katherine Albrecht and
> CASPIAN advocate.
>
> Startpage.com info on how it protects you:
> https://startpage.com/eng/prism-program-exposed.html
>
> Here's the content of that page:
>
> --snip--
>
> No PRISM. No Surveillance. No Government Back Doors. You Have our Word on
> it.
>
> Giant US government Internet spying scandal revealed
>
> The Washington Post and The Guardian have revealed a US government
> mass Internet surveillance program code-named "PRISM". They report
> that the NSA and the FBI have been tapping directly into the servers
> of nine US service providers, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google,
> Apple, Yahoo, YouTube, AOL and Skype, and began this surveillance
> program at least seven years ago. (clarifying slides)
>
> These revelations are shaking up an international debate.
>
> StartPage has always been very outspoken when it comes to protecting
> people's Privacy and civil liberties. So it won't surprise you that we
> are a strong opponent of overreaching, unaccountable spy programs like
> PRISM. In the past, even government surveillance programs that were
> begun with good intentions have become tools for abuse, for example
> tracking civil rights and anti-war protesters.
>
> Programs like PRISM undermine our Privacy, disrupt faith in
> governments, and are a danger to the free Internet.
>
> StartPage and its sister search engine Ixquick have in their 14-year
> history never provided a single byte of user data to the US
> government, or any other government or agency. Not under PRISM, nor
> under any other program in the US, nor under any program anywhere in
> the world.
>
> Here's how we are different:
>
> StartPage does not store any user data. We make this perfectly clear
> to everyone, including any governmental agencies. We do not record the
> IP addresses of our users and we don't use tracking cookies, so there
> is literally no data about you on our servers to access. Since we
> don't even know who our customers are, we can't share anything with
> Big Brother. In fact, we've never gotten even a single request from a
> governmental authority to supply user data in the fourteen years we've
> been in business.
>
> StartPage uses encryption (HTTPS) by default. Encryption prevents
> snooping. Your searches are encrypted, so others can't "tap" the
> Internet connection to snoop what you're searching for. This
> combination of not storing data together with using strong encryption
> for the connections is key in protecting your Privacy.
>
> Our company is based in The Netherlands, Europe. US jurisdiction does
> not apply to us, at least not directly. Any request or demand from ANY
> government (including the US) to deliver user data, will be thoroughly
> checked by our lawyers, and we will not comply unless the law which
> actually applies to us would undeniably require it from us. And even
> in that hypothetical situation, we refer to our first point; we don't
> even have any user data to give. We will never cooperate with
> voluntary spying programs like PRISM.
>
> StartPage cannot be forced to start spying. Given the strong
> protection of the Right to Privacy in Europe, European governments
> cannot just start forcing service providers like us to implement a
> blanket spying program on their users. And if that ever changed, we
> would fight this to the end.
> Privacy. It's not just our policy, it's our mission.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Robert E.G. Beens
> CEO StartPage.com and Ixquick.com
>
> --snip--
>
> Hope that helps some Yosem.
>
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> > RT @bytesforall: "World's Most Private Search Engine"
> > http://ixquick.com/eng/. Anyone evaluated this? #Pakistan #Privacy
> > #NetFreedom #Google @PrivacySurgeon
> > --
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