Verizon Tries Its Hand at… Search

January 29, 2020

Verizon is hopping on the privacy bandwagon but how do we know we can trust it? ArsTechnica reports, “Verizon Offers No-Tracking Search Engine, Promises to Protect Your Privacy.” The company’s new platform is called OneSearch. It gets its results from Bing, but imposes privacy features on them. While still running contextual advertising, of course, but ones that rely on keywords, not tracking. This search service is in addition to, not replacing, the existing Yahoo search engine. (Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017.) Yahoo search also gets its results from Bing, but makes no promises about privacy.

Here are the promises we get from OneSearch: no cookie tracking, retargeting, or personal profiling; no sharing of personal data with advertisers; and no storing search histories. When users click on the “Advanced Privacy Mode” button, the platform encrypts their search terms and URL and sets the results link to expire in an hour. However, writer Jon Brodkin reports:

“The Verizon search engine homepage says, ‘OneSearch doesn’t use cookies. Period.’ Chrome detected that OneSearch did set one cookie on my computer, so that statement seems to be exaggerated. The EFF’s Privacy Badger detected a potential tracker that’s tied to the u.yimg.com domain, indicating a connection between OneSearch and Yahoo’s image service. What Verizon apparently means is that it doesn’t use cookies to build ad-targeting profiles. Verizon uses your IP address to determine your ‘general location,’ helping it deliver location-specific search results. Verizon said that ‘We only ever infer location data up to the city level of specificity for search localization purposes.’”

The write-up also lists in more detail the steps OneSearch performs for each query. We are also reminded of less-than-stellar performance of Verizon’s media division thus far. See the article for those details.

So, can we trust Verizon to deliver on its privacy vows? Brodkin notes several events that may give us pause: In 2016, the company paid a $1.35 million fine and agreed to change their ways over “supercookies;” it, along with T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T, was caught selling mobile customers’ location data to third-party brokers; and Verizon regularly opposes government regulations that would require carriers to protect customer privacy. The write-up suggests DuckDuckGo and Startpage as alternatives for anyone hesitant to take Verizon at its word.

Cynthia Murrell, January 29, 2020

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.