Stealth, a new search engine, is offering users an alternative to Google and the other major players. The company promises searchers the chance to avoid being tracked as they search and move throughout the web.
According to Stealth founder Jon Cook, the search engine does not store cookies, IP addresses or search history. On its website, Stealth lists a series of reasons to use its engine, rather than Google. Almost all of the 30 reasons have to do with privacy violation accusations aimed at Google.
Most aren’t different from what’s critics have said about the search giant’s new privacy policies in recent months, and others mirror data complaints that arose after Google launched Search, plus Your World in January. Among the most interesting argument against Google on Stealth’s “Reasons to Switch” page is a claim that Google’s site indexing is illegal.
“Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the internet, Google’s cache copy appears to be illegal,” the website says. “The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a ‘noarchive’ meta in the header of every page on his site.”
Essentially, the company believes all Google features should have to be opted into, rather than the current stats that requires used to opt out of Google services. Other search engines using simillar models have seen surges since the controversy surrounding Google arose. DuckDuckGo has seen rapid increases in traffic, breaking its own records for unique visitors on a weekly basis.
Users aren’t too happy about the infusion of social data into Google search results. Brafton recently reported that more than half of respondents to a survey do not like the idea of Google using Google+ data in search results. However, Google did manage to pick up more market share in January 2012.
