Recent issues in China, involving the release of personal web data by Google and Yahoo! to government officials, have highlighted how sensitive our search information really is. With our private personal data at stake, trust between web surfers and major search engines is vital, yet bigmouthmedia's latest survey reveals that less than half of web users think that our personal search data is safe.
The bigmouthmedia survey, which contacted over 1,000 web users, showed that more than 60 per cent were unsure that Google would keep their data private - even though Google was the search engine that people trusted most.
Our survey also shows that 38 per cent of UK searchers are confident that Google would keep their data private. The remaining 62 per cent were uncertain, or doubted Google would. Google scored more highly than Yahoo!, where only 26 per cent of UK searchers felt their data would be kept private. MSN's Live search engine came slightly lower than Yahoo!, with only 23 per cent of searchers confident that MSN would keep their data secure.
Industry expert Bill Slawski commented:
"There isn't a privileged relationship between searchers and search engines, such as between a doctor and patient. Google's privacy policy states that they will only use personal information to improve the services that they offer, but it's really the force of public opinion that may keep them from revealing information that they might otherwise share with others."
Mr Slawski added:
"All of the major search engines collect data about our use of their services, and it adds up to a considerable amount of information. How much access do we have to view and control that information? Very little, really. How easy is it for us to find out what information is being collected about us and how it is used? What assurances do we have as to the usage of that information? How much control do we have over it? Would they be willing to let us remove that data? Should they create Ombudsman offices?"
In bigmouthmedia's survey ,Google was the only search engine which scored more "Yes" than "No" votes when searchers were asked "Do you trust [this search engine] to keep your search behaviour private?"
Yes: 38%
No: 30%
Don't know: 32%
The survey, available in full here, illustrates the split views web users have when it comes to the leading search engines and their privacy intentions.
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