Here’s our earlier coverage of the survey:

• Pew Report: 65% View Personalized Search As Bad; 73% See It As Privacy Invasion
• Pew Survey: 68% View Targeted Ads Negatively; 59% Have Noticed Targeting

To recap the basic findings, Pew reported that search usage was highly popular and essentially tied with email as the most common online activity — and still quite a bit more popular than social networking according to these findings.

Google’s US market share is just over 66 percent according to the most recent comScore data. However when asked which search engine they used most often, 83 percent of Pew respondents said Google.

The upbeat survey findings took an abruptly negative turn when Pew started asking people about search personalization and data mining. Two-thirds (65 percent) of users said search personalization was a “bad thing.” Nearly three-fourths (73 percent) said that data mining for the purpose of personalizing search results was “not okay.”

What’s fascinating here is that the public, at least in terms of these survey findings, doesn’t seem to be associating Google with any of the “not okay” things they don’t like about personalization and ad targeting. In fact there seems to be a complete disconnect between survey respondents’ positive views of search, and by extension Google, and disapproval of personalization and data mining.

Pew didn’t insert Google’s (or Bing’s) names into the questions about personalization or data mining to see if these activities would harm brand perception and usage. Pew simply asked about data mining in the abstract. However it would have been very interesting to see the answers to those more specific questions.

Google has met with intensifying criticism in the recent past over several privacy related incidents and missteps (e.g., Cookiegate, privacy policy changes). But the general US public seems not to have noticed. Google is probably assuming that any furor over SPYW and privacy will simply blow over and it won’t suffer any brand or image “penalty” or consumer defections to Bing. That may be a correct assumption — although the issue of online privacy is not going away any time soon.

My guess is that Google will generally ignore the Pew survey findings (though legislators probably won’t) and continue, full speed ahead, on its present personalization course.

Related Entries

• Pew Report: 65% View Personalized Search As Bad; 73% See It As Privacy Invasion
• Pew Survey: 68% View Targeted Ads Negatively; 59% Have Noticed Targeting
• Cookiegate Another Privacy Black Eye For Google
• Google Didn’t “Track” iPhones, But It Did Bypass Safari’s Privacy Settings
• Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• 36 State Attorneys General Call For Privacy Meeting With Google
• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Europeans, EPIC Bring More Scrutiny To Google Privacy Changes
• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality CheckSurv

The findings come out of a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Around 2,000 adults in the US were questioned between January 20 and February 19 of this year as part of a wide-ranging poll about search engine use, though fewer may have answered particular questions.

Personalized Search: A Bad Thing

People were asked how they’d feel if a search engine tracked what they searched for, then used that information to personalize their future search results:

Rather than a straight yes/no option, the choices gave some context. From the chart above about views on personalized search:

• 65% said it was a “bad thing” since, as the response said, “it may limit the information you get online and what search results you see”
• 29% said it was a “good thing” because “it gives you results that are more relevant you.”

By Demographics

The survey also broke down responses to the question about personalized search by age, income level and race:

Generally speaking, the older someone was, the less they agreed with personalized search. The percentage of those who said it was bad by age group:

• 18-29: 56%
• 30-49: 67%
• 50+: 70%

A similar pattern was true by income group. The more you earn, the more you’re likely to consider personalized search to be bad. The percentages disagreeing with it by income:

• Less than $30,000: 45% (the most favorable of all groups)
• $30,000 to $74,999: 68%
• $75,000: 75%

Whites were far more likely to disagree with it than Blacks/Hispanics as a combined group (70% to 50%).

Invasion Of Privacy

The survey also asked the same question but with a different set of possible answers, these designed to tell if tracking searches was deemed a privacy invasion:

Again, rather than a straight yes/no option, there was context to each choice:

• 73% overall said they were “Not OK” with personalized search, since they felt it was an invasion of their privacy
• 83% of those 50+ viewed it as a privacy invasion
• 69% of those 18-29 viewed it as as an invasion
• 68% of those 30-49 viewed it as an invasion

Some History & Perspective On Personalized Search

There’s no way to tell if all the attention personalized search has had lately is generating more negative views than in the past. That’s because Pew hasn’t surveyed views on personalized search before, to my knowledge. But those surveyed now clearly did not like it.

The new findings will likely give fresh ammunition to those who oppose personalized search, especially as conducted by Google. It follows on another survey last month that found largely negative views.

However, it’s worth noting that personalized search has been the norm at Google for over two years and at Bing for just over a year. Even if you’re not logged into either search engine, they’re personalizing your results.

The fact that most people haven’t objected, or gone out of their way to prevent even logged-out personalization from happening, probably means that they really don’t understand the ways that personalization can be helpful. Last November, Google had a very good post explaining some of the benefits.

Yes, I know — it’s Google, of course they’re going to push the benefits. But so does Bing. Yes, I know, Bing wants to personalize results just to make money off searchers in the same way as Google. True.

But it’s also true that some personalization can indeed be helpful, especially in a web full of crud. Just over a year ago, people were screaming that Google’s search results were being overrun by garbage, which resulted in the Panda Update. But filtering can only do so much. Personalization is also a useful signal.

Preventing Fears From Becoming Real

The challenge is when the search engines go to far. Google’s Search Plus Your World launched earlier this year dramatically increased the amount of personalized results that were visible (though ironically, it also made it far easier to turn off the personalization that had been happening since December 2009).

Google faced pretty severe backlash in the mainstream and tech press, though regular users really didn’t seem to notice or care about the change.

My view tends to be that no one likes the idea of personalization. There’s fear that you’ll be stuck in what Eli Pariser calls a filter bubble. Or that you’ll be in that bad feedback loop like at Amazon, where you get terrible recommendations based on an odd one-time purchase. And there are real privacy worries about having all your searches — some of which can be intensely personal — recorded.

I think when you ask anyone about personalization, the reaction they have will be far more negative than in their actual routine. If they’re educated more about it, if you give them more context, a knee-jerk “it’s bad” response can often turn into a “maybe.” I’ve seen this happen when I’ve spoken with people on the topic.

That’s not to take away that people do have real concerns. It just remains to be seen if those concerns on paper turn into walking away from Google and Bing to the likes of Duck Duck Go or other “private” search engines we covered recently. Certainly if the major search engines don’t show care to these concerns, that may increase the odds.

More From The Survey

We’ll be breaking down different aspects of the complete Pew survey in the coming days. So far, here’s our other coverage:

• Pew Survey: 68% View Targeted Ads Negatively; 59% Have Noticed Targeting

More On Personalized Search

And here are some related background pieces on personalized search:

• Search 4.0: Social Search Engines & Putting Humans Back In Search
• Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
• Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention
• Bing Results Get Localized & Personalized
• A Conversation With Eli Pariser Of “The Filter Bubble”
• Study Asks, Can You Trust Google’s Personalized Search Results?
• Survey: People Largely Negative About Google’s Personalized Search Results
• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
• Scroogle’s Gone? Here’s Who Still Offers Private Searching

For its part, Google says the new policy will simplify privacy across Google’s many properties and make it possible for the company to build a range of new products and services for consumers, including on mobile. Arguably Google’s simplification of its many privacy policies was actually mandated by the FTC in the Buzz settlement.

Changes won’t affect users controls

Google also says that the new privacy policy won’t affect the controls that users can exercise over their browsing and search history:

The new policy doesn’t change any existing privacy settings or how any personal information is shared outside of Google. We aren’t collecting any new or additional information about users. We won’t be selling your personal data. And we will continue to employ industry-leading security to keep your information safe.

Nonetheless, there are a range of articles about how to “keep Google from watching you,” like one this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this week the Obama Administration introduced a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” that will be voluntarily supported by Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. A parallel initiative involves implementation of a “do not track” button in browsers, which Google has said it will install in Chrome.

Google still under intense scrutiny, pressure over privacy

Despite these moves, Google still faces intense scrutiny and pressure from lawmakers, advocacy groups and states’ Attorneys General (see e.g., 36 State Attorneys General Call For Privacy Meeting With Google).

Yesterday during her SMX West keynote interview Google’s SVP of Advertising Susan Wojcicki spoke at some length about privacy and how that plays out in the context of Google’s ad and consumer products. She explained that Google is ultimately seeking to balance consumer and advertiser interests and is guided by several principles: control, notification and transparency.

She added that nothing changes today as a practical matter except the policy itself. However that sets the stage for potential later changes in consumer products and advertiser options.

Wojcicki tries to explain Google’s goals with new policy

Wojcicki also addressed the controversy over Google circumventing iPhone Safari privacy settings. She acknowledged “mistakes” and that there had been several privacy related missteps in the recent past. These communication and PR blunders have contributed to fear and suspicion that what Google says and what it intends are two different things.

Below are part of Wojcicki’s remarks from yesterday about Google and its new privacy policy and what the company is seeking to accomplish. You can see more clips, including additional privacy discussion, from her keynote interview here.

Related Entries

• Live Blogging the Google (Susan Wojcicki) SMX West Keynote
• White House Launches “Consumer Bill Of Rights” Effort, Companies Commit To “Do Not Track” Buttons
• 36 State Attorneys General Call For Privacy Meeting With Google
• Cookiegate Another Privacy Black Eye For Google
• Google Didn’t “Track” iPhones, But It Did Bypass Safari’s Privacy Settings
• Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
• Google Intros New Privacy Controls For Mobile Consumers
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”
• A Closer Look At The Google Buzz Privacy Settlement
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Europeans, EPIC Bring More Scrutiny To Google Privacy Changes
• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check

Now that it’s gone, where can searchers go for a more private search experience than Google and Bing offer by default? Here’s a list of a few alternatives. Note that different search engines below make different privacy-related claims; I haven’t investigated them in detail — i.e., by examining cookies, etc. — so anyone looking for a private search experience should do his/her own research.

Private Search Engine Options

DuckDuckGo

Probably no altrernative search engine has hung its hat more solidly on the privacy issue than DuckDuckGo. In early 2011, it made a splash with the launch of DontTrack.us, a website that illustrates how Google tracks searchers (and how DuckDuckGo doesn’t).

DuckDuckGo’s privacy page is very clear: DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information.

People are noticing, too. Last year, DuckDuckGo was included on TIME magazine’s list of the best websites of 2011. Earlier this month, DDG set a new record with its first million-search day.

Ixquick/Startpage

Ixquick has long advertised itself as “the world’s most private search engine.” Its privacy policy says that user IP addresses are not recorded and only sends one cookie to users’ computers — a preferences cookie that expires after 90 days. It does, however, collect and store “limited” user information — the date and time of a search, as well as the browser and platform used for the search.

Last October, Ixquick announced that it was making SSL encryption the default on all searches.

The same company also operates Startpage, which looks like the closest mirror of what Scroogle previously offered. Startpage takes a search query, removes all identifiable information about the searcher, and submits the search to Google anonymously. “Your IP address is never recorded, your visit is not logged, and no tracking cookies are placed on your browser,” Startpage’s home page explains.

Yippy

Yippy is a “family friendly” portal site with a search engine that came from its 2010 purchase of Clusty.

On its About page, Yippy says “We won’t track your activity on our platform, store your history in our browser, monitor or record your searches, store copies of your email, or collect any more personal information than you volunteer. We also won’t sell your personal information to advertisers for profit.”

Yippy’s Privacy page adds that international users (i.e., outside the U.S.) “are subject to forms of minimal tracking depending as required on the country from which they originate.”

Ask.com’s “Ask Eraser”

Although it’s shifting away from pure search to its Q&A roots, Ask.com continues to offer its Ask Eraser tool to searchers on www.ask.com and uk.ask.com.

Ask Eraser can be turned in Ask.com’s settings, which explains the tool this way:

When AskEraser is enabled your search activity will be deleted from Ask.com (not third-party) servers, except in rare circumstances described in the AskEraser FAQ. You can learn about the third-party partners who receive your search activity here.

Those “rare circumstances” include when Ask is asked to retain search activity data by law or government officials, or if the data is needed to “solve a critical technical issue.”

Google Encrypted Search

Ironically, one of the post-Scroogle options is Google itself, via Google Encrypted Search. While searches here are secure, it doesn’t actually solve the issue that Scroogle (and some of the sites mentioned above) addressed: Even when you’re using Google’s encrypted search, Google will know who you are (if you’re logged in to a Google account) and will still save your search activity if you’ve enabled the search history feature.

So, while it is a secure search option, it’s not private in the sense that the sites above claim to be private.

I should add, too, that you don’t have to visit the link above for Google’s encrypted search; in October, Google began encrypting all searches when users are logged in to a Google account.

If you think we missed any private search options, let us know in the comments!

To recap: Google and other ad networks (i.e., Gannett’s PointRoll) were discovered circumventing mobile Safari’s default “no third party cookies” settings. The WSJ characterized it as “tricking” Safari. As a practical matter Google was trying to make its +1 buttons work on iOS. The company was quoted in the WSJ article itself saying that nothing sinister was intended:

The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes this controversy warrants a big “mea culpa” from Google and justifies “do not track” options for users. The UK’s Daily Mail describes Google’s activity as tantamount to “spying on iPhone owners.”

John Battelle defends Google (and decries Apple’s privacy “paternalism”), saying the company was merely restoring “normal web practice”:

In short, Apple’s mobile version of Safari broke with common web practice,  and as a result, it broke Google’s normal approach to engaging with consumers. Was Google’s “normal approach” wrong? Well, I suppose that’s a debate worth having – it’s currently standard practice and the backbone of the entire web advertising ecosystem –  but the Journal doesn’t bother to go into those details. One can debate whether setting cookies should happen by default – but the fact is, that’s how it’s done on the open web.

It’s fair to say the story is more complex than what was originally reported by the WSJ. The central problem is that most consumers have little understanding of the intricacies of online advertising, cookie tracking and how to manage the process. And it’s very challenging to educate them on these topics. Indeed, most people never change default settings on their computers or their phones, which is why these “default search” deals are so valuable and coveted in part.

There are numerous surveys, however, that argue consumers are concerned about privacy and mobile privacy in particular. The degree of concern varies by age, situation and how the question is framed. But the concern is there. For example, a February 2011 survey from TRUSTe and Harris showed that the majority were concerned about mobile “tracking” by third parties:

The vast majority of survey respondents (98%) believe that privacy is an important issue when using a mobile device and they want more transparency and choice over the personal information mobile apps and websites collect and share, especially as it relates to targeted advertising and geo-location data. Additionally, more than 1 in 3 of consumers (38%) identified privacy as their number one concern when using mobile applications, followed by security (26%) and identity tracking (19%).

Source: Harris-TRUSTe (2/11, n=1,000 US adults)

Apple’s mobile Safari default is to block cookies from other than the site being visited. This was a decision Apple made on behalf of its users without “consulting” with them. EFF believes it’s the right choice. Battelle says it breaks with “web practice.” My guess based on the various survey data I’ve seen is that most users would side with Apple on this one.

Whether or not Cookiegate “has legs” (and members of Congress start calling for more investigations), it’s yet another PR misstep and black eye for Google around privacy. It looks especially bad or “hypocritical” in light of a high-profile campaign Google was recently running on websites like the NY Times about privacy and user data. The campaign tries to educate and reassure users that their data are safe with Google.

Google has sought to position itself as a guardian of user privacy. Indeed, last year Google specifically said it was going the extra mile to respect and give users control over mobile privacy. But a growing string of controversies, including Google’s recent announcement about the consolidation of its privacy policies into one, has rendered that claim hollow for many people.

Rather than scheming or conscious, unethical behavior on Google’s part, I tend to see this misstep as a function of arrogance or insensitivity. But the growing number of privacy controversies is becoming problem and contributing to a perception that Google needs to be reined in.

During the nearly simultaneous Kenya and Search Plus Your World uproars I wrote that people are increasingly inclined to leap to conclusions about Google based on their fundamental beliefs about whether the company is good or “evil.” More and more they project on to the Google ink blot whatever they want to see.

It’s not clear that any of the privacy issues described above have impacted “ordinary users” or their perceptions of Google. So far there isn’t really any evidence. But if these missteps keep happening Google’s reputation will certainly suffer with the public.

Postscript: See our follow-up, No Surprise: Congress, Consumer & Privacy Groups Want Google To Explain Safari Privacy Snafu

Related Entries

• Google Didn’t “Track” iPhones, But It Did Bypass Safari’s Privacy Settings
• Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
• Apple Takes Google’s Spot As “Most Reputable Company” In US
• Google #2, Facebook #38 In Global “Brand Desire” Study
• Google Intros New Privacy Controls For Mobile Consumers
• Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time
• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”
• A Closer Look At The Google Buzz Privacy Settlement
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Europeans, EPIC Bring More Scrutiny To Google Privacy Changes
• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check

Members of the House Energy and Commerce committee grilled Pablo Chavez, Google’s director of public policy, and Google attorney Michael Yang for about two hours. After the meeting, several of the Representatives expressed their unhappiness with Google’s answers on a variety of privacy issues — questions brought on by Google’s recent announcement that it will combine all of its privacy policies into one, which will allow the company to share user information across its services.

That last point, according to Representative Mary Bono Mack, may leave Google in violation of HIPAA, a law that protects how personal health information may be shared. Bono Mack explained her concerns to USA Today:

“…say you do a Google search for cervical cancer and you forget to sign out. Are you being tracked across all of the other products, and if so, that’s a violation of HIPPA. We’ve gone to great lengths in our society to protect people’s medical information. That question was raised.”

Bono Mack is suggesting that Google might be violating HIPAA if it remembers the “cervical cancer” search after the user moves on from search to another Google product, like Gmail or YouTube (or any other).

But is Google actually compelled to follow the HIPAA requirements? According to the Health & Human Services website, the law applies to groups that meet the definition of a “covered entity” — health care providers (like doctors and nurses), health plans (like insurance companies and HMOs) and health care clearinghouses.

Google is certainly not a health care provider or a health plan, but is it a clearinghouse? My non-expert reading of the definition suggests the answer is “no.”

Google has been involved in health information via its Google Health product, but that just shut down on January 1st. Even when it was active, Google said it wasn’t bound by HIPAA. Here’s the opening sentence of the old/current Google Health privacy policy:

Unlike a doctor or health plan, Google Health is not regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that establishes data confidentiality standards for patient health information.

Furthermore, Google’s new privacy policy, which takes effect on March 1st, includes language that seems to say ads won’t be personalized based on health-related activity:

When showing you tailored ads, we will not associate a cookie or anonymous identifier with sensitive categories, such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health.

Bono Mack tells USA Today that there will be more Congressional hearings about online privacy and that she “pressed” Google to be there. But, based on my non-expert reading of the law, the HIPAA angle may not get very far in those hearings.

We’ve been covering the non-search elements of Google’s new privacy policy on our sister site, Marketing Land. See below for several related articles offering background and other angles.

Related Entries

• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check
• Google “Myth Busts” Microsoft’s Privacy Claims
• Microsoft Slams Google Privacy Changes With “Putting People First” Ad Campaign
• Google Tells Congress: Users Can Opt-Out Of New Privacy Policy By Not Logging In
• House Committee Has Privacy Questions For Google; Google Says Bring It On
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?

(Stock image via Shutterstock.com. Used under license.)

The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named “McGeehome,” you’d need to rename that to “McGeehome_nomap.” (And frankly, I’d prefer you use your own last name while you’re at it.)

Google says this method “provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission.” The company is also encouraging other location providers to adopt and respect the _nomap signal in the future.

In its help pages, Google says its system will pick up the new SSID name and process the opt-out the next time your router sends location information to Google’s servers through a reliable channel.

Google’s been in trouble around the world since admitting that its Street View vehicles collected personal information through unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has repeatedly said the data collection was an accident.

This _nomap opt-out method was something that several data protection agencies in Europe requested Google provide to safeguard against similar problems in the future. Google promised an opt-out method in September.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.)

The complaint against Facebook stems from sweeping changes to privacy settings in 2009. Several privacy advocacy groups including EPIC complained to the FTC about Facebook’s actions, which made much of users’ profile data public by default. Those original complaints have culminated in the the pending settlement.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The settlement stems from changes Facebook made to its privacy settings in December 2009 to make aspects of users’ profiles—such as name, picture, city, gender, and friends list—public by default. At the time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described the changes as a “simpler model for privacy control.”

Users complained and several privacy advocates, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed a complaint with the FTC, alleging the changes were unfair and deceptive.

In addition to the privacy audits, according to the New York Times, Facebook would also be prevented from subsequently making public any information that was shared privately, without explicit consent from users.

Facebook has had a relatively cavalier attitude toward privacy in the past. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was famously quoted in January 2010 saying that privacy was “no longer a social norm.” His remarks were widely reported and taken somewhat out of context. However, Zuckerberg’s views on privacy appear to have evolved and he now more readily acknowledges the importance of privacy rather than dismissing it.

Indeed the site has recently taken greater steps to make privacy controls simpler and more obvious — such as implementing in-line privacy tools that offer sharing control over individual pieces of content. And in their recent Charlie Rose interview, Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg spoke extensively about privacy.

Assuming the FTC settlement happens it won’t end Facebook’s privacy problems with the feds, however. EPIC and the ACLU have asked the FTC to investigate Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” capability and Congressional Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Tex.) are asking the FTC to look into Facebook’s use of cookies and tracking of users logged out of the site (which Facebook has said it “fixed.”)

In Europe, which has much stricter privacy rules than the US, Facebook faces a potentially very broad privacy inquiry from the European Commission. Ireland has also separately initiated its own inquiry into alleged Facebook “shadow profiles” of non-users. On the Continent, Germany declared Facebook’s iconic Like buttons illegal forcing their removal from the German internet.

In some sense these privacy investigations signal that Facebook has “arrived” and reflect new and more intense government scrutiny that the 800 million-member network will face going forward. We may thus be at the beginning of what could become a long saga, much in the same way that Google has endured myriad privacy investigations over the past several years, and continues to face them.

Related Entries

• Facebook “Frictionless Sharing” Creating Friction With Privacy Advocates, Regulators
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg To Charlie Rose: “We Just Do One Thing”
• New Facebook Sharing Controls Undermine Google+ Privacy Advantage
• Twenty Year FTC “Privacy Audit” Intended To Punish, Make Example Of Google
• Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button Declared Illegal In Germany

Ixquick says it became the first search engine to offer encrypted search back in 2009. In its announcement, Ixquick notes that the major search engines have recently begun to offer SSL encrypted searching.

Other search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have begun to follow Ixquick’s lead by offering SSL encryption. However, the privacy benefits of using SSL with other major search engines may be misleading, since those search engines themselves record users’ IP address and store extensive records of their searches.

Ixquick also has a sister search engine, Startpage, that’s also encrypting all searches. Startpage’s premise is that it removes all personally identifiable information and then submits the search query to Google, then returns Google’s search results “in total privacy.”

The move means that valuable keyword referral data will not be passed to analytics programs (including Google Analytics) when a logged-in Google user searches from Google.com.

Although Google says the change will impact less than 10 percent of searchers, that’s still a significant amount of keyword referral data that will now be hidden from website owners. Well, it won’t be hidden if those searchers click on one of Google’s ads because, in that case, Google says its advertisers need to be able to “measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.”

In addition to the heated discussion in the comments of our original article, the search marketing industry reacted loudly elsewhere, too. Here’s a sample of what was said.

Tony Verre, on Search Engine Journal: Google Turning the Lights Out on Organic Data

Moreover, those who used analytics just to surmise if people/consumers and how people/consumers found them for something other than BRAND terms, just got a punch in the face [read Mom and Pop shops who can't afford online marketing services and help]. The web might be a key component to survival for them, and taking away accurate data in the name of faux-privacy is a pretty big deal.

Patrick Altoft, on Blogstorm: Google turns off keyword referrer information for logged in users

To me this seems like a move designed both to make Google appear to be protecting users as well as an opportunity for them to take away data that helps big sites build more effective SEO campaigns.

Aaron Bradley, commenting on Google+ in response to my post about the news

I’m a little perplexed that Google has cited privacy concerns with this move. Unless I’m missing something, there’s no way for a Google Analytics user to trace back a referrer to a specific individual whether they’re logged into Google or not. Even with log analysis you’re only going to get an IP, and you’d have to associate that with a user, somehow (and here a logged in Google user would be no different than an anonymous surfer).

Joost de Valk, on SEO Book: Google Whores Out Users With False Privacy Claims

This is what I call hypocrisy at work. Google cares about your privacy, unless they make money on you, then they don’t. The fact is that due to this change, AdWords gets favored over organic results. Once again, Google gets to claim that it cares about your privacy and pulls a major public “stunt”. The issue is, they don’t care about your privacy enough to not give that data to their advertisers.

Alan Bleiweiss, on Search Engine Journal: SEO Under Attack – The Google Analytics Keyword Data Apocalypse

And Google isn’t eliminating ALL keyword data. Only a sub-set. Okay – so if you have a particular site where you know for a fact that the majority of visits come from people signed in to Google, maybe in that particular scenario, you may truly be negatively impacted even from the loss of ability to look at general keyword trends. But how many of you know that’s your particular situation?

Peter Young, on Holistic Search Marketing: The day Google took on SEO, CRO and Analytics

To be honest the fact that its perfectly acceptable for PPC data to be tracked in the same circumstance that Google says it cannot pass organic data through for “privacy purposes” would suggest again this privacy is the least of their concerns. “You can have the data – as long as you pay us” would appear to be the rhetoric here.

Shaun Anderson, on Hobo: Now We Will Need To Pay To See Keyword Referrer Data?

… apparently ADVERTISERS will still get the data through Google Adwords. Hmmm…. so the ‘privacy’ thing is utter bollocks, then. If we pay money we get the data.

Michael Martinez, in comments below on this recap:

It’s funny. You’ll get better data from Google Webmaster Tools’ query report and you can tie that to Google Analytics (or use tools like Keyword Strategy to cull the data) and here people are acting like it’s the end of the SEO keyword research world. Did I dropped from the PANIC MEMO distribution list AGAIN?

That’s just a sample of the reaction we’ve seen over the first few hours since Google’s announcement. No doubt more will be forthcoming, and we’ll update as we hear more. There’s also an active Sphinn discussion with additional opinions about today’s news.

Postscript: See our follow-up piece Google Puts A Price On Privacy.

(Stock image courtesy of Shutterstock. Used under license.)