Ask.com has launched AskEraser, an application that gives visitors a choice to keep their search behavior private by telling Ask to delete all search behavior from its servers. The application has two states - “on” and “off”. “On” is on by default, and choosing “off” means all search queries throughout the endurance of that state will not be recorded. AskEraser is available for US and UK users, although the change will take effect on other major sites throughout 2008.

Online advertising is ever more reliant on user behavior as the focus on the Internet has moved towards the individual user. Giving users the choice to opt-out of privacy delicate situations is a good step forward. Facebook had this setup for its Beacon, but had to change the system to opt-in after receiving a lot of negative feedback from its user community. I wonder why default states are not “off”, and the users are asked to opt-in to tracking and user behavior based content serving rather than making them/us look for a way to opt-out. Maybe because the core of the whole privacy issue, as is the case with many other situations, is money and profit.

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