This is rich. Ask.com is hoping to lure googlers with a feature where users can “erase” the records of their internet searches (a product for people who believe they can “erase” files on their own hard drives* no doubt). It would seem Ask.com wants to play sleuth and go through your garbage/trash/recycle-bin!
Ho ho ho.
Considering that Ask.com accumulates records of not just your queries, but your unasked queries through javascript, and considering their searches are actually subcontracted to Google, meaning Google acquires the records as well, the only thing the “erase tool” will accomplish will be to remove the list of your queries which reappears for you as a typing aid. Thus you won’t be reminded of your past searches, which is handy if you share a computer and prefer other users not see where you’ve been browsing. But that can be accomplished by purging your browser’s history.
Actually, the main thing “erasing” accomplishes besides giving you a false sense of privacy, is to give Ask.com one more set of data about you, and a red flag doozy of a blue light special for intelligence files: the searches you feel bothered enough to want erased. Ho ho ha ha ha.
*NOTE: Dragging a file to the trash does not erase it. Emptying the trash does not erase it. Files are not “erased,” only the addresses to the files are erased. “Wiping” a drive will erase the actual files, but not from the eyes of forensic experts. Data recovery specialists can reconstruct files many overwrites back.
