Search privacy is a hot issue these days. A recent poll from the people behind the search engine Hakia reveals that 62 percent do not trust their search engine with their information.

The poll has not queried a representative selection of Web searchers. But the opinion of 295 Web searchers who are readers of top-technology Web blogs seems to us to be valuable in regard to a subject like this.

The respondents also disclosed the most important issues search engines can address to win users’ trust. The top two responses were “users did not want search engines to stores any data at all:” (30%); and “users wanted editing permission over the data search engines keep:” (19%).

Solutions to the search privacy problem

Pandia reported in June about metasearch engine Ixquick’s response to the debate about search privacy. Robert E.G. Beens, CEO of Ixquick, promises to delete IP addresses within 48 hours. In comparison Google will not make the data anonymous until after 18 to 24 months.

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