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New Tool Protects Your Search Privacy

A new tool, "Lost In The Crowd", was developed by Unspam Technologies Inc. The tool helps consumers to protect their privacy by sending incorrect search data to AOL, Google, MSN, and other search engines on their behalf. Unspam CEO Matthew Prince said it took only one week to build the tool. It was built in response to the recent AOL Inc. failure, where thousands of subscribers found their search data was spread all over the Internet.

"Lost In The Crowd" randomly generates queries to puzzle anyone who may look through future search reports. Consumers download a search engine bookmark from "Lost In The Crowd" before going to the search engine and clicking on the bookmark. This hands the Web cookie for the search engine to another computer operated by Unspam, which runs random searches on the searcher`s behalf, several times a day for up to six months.

In order to stop the process, searchers return to the search engine and click on the "Lost In The Crowd" bookmark. This displays the amount and the last erroneous search description run on the user`s behalf, and an option to remove the bookmark and cookie. However, this can cause some problems to the search engine, to which the search results are crucial.