
Scroogle, Privacy-First Search Engine, Shuts Down for Good - tshtf
http://www.betabeat.com/2012/02/21/scroogle-privacy-first-search-engine-shuts-down-for-good/
======
untog
I absolutely understand people's objections to Google's tracking, but the
answer is not a hack like Scroogle.

If you disagree with Google, don't use their services- simple as that. Use a
competing search service, e-mail provider, etc. and don't just hide behind a
proxy like Scroogle.

~~~
ronnoch
What if you object to being tracked, but also realize that no other search
engine comes close to matching Google's results?

~~~
untog
Tough. Google's results are, in part, created from their tracking. If you
object to the tracking then you shouldn't use the output of said tracking.

~~~
schiffern
>Tough.

It's not my job to look out for Google's interests. "You're the product, not
the customer," remember? Why should I concern myself with the quality of
Google's product?

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pconf
Anyone can create a Scroogle replacement without a whole lot of effort.
Scroogle died IMO because of their own technical and political shortcomings,
not because of anything Google did.

IXquick and DuckDuckGo are already viable replacements, but there's plenty of
room for improvement. First it should be a better distributed service, not
just 6 servers. Second it should be located outside of the USA or any other
country without sufficient regulatory protections from predatory corporations
such as Google, Yahoo and SOPA supporting organizations. Perhaps PirateBay,
the EFF, or another consumer-oriented entity might be interested in sponsoring
such an anonymizing service?

~~~
rhubarbquid
> Perhaps PirateBay, the EFF, or another consumer-oriented entity might be
> interested in sponsoring such an anonymizing service?

They do, or did in the case of EFF, it's called Tor.

~~~
slowpoke
TPB runs their own VPN provider, <https://www.ipredator.se/>

------
enormousfaggot
Replacement: <http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html>

~~~
nyar
That's Bing. That is not a replacement. It is an alternative.

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BCM43
As a possible replacement: <http://googlesharing.net/>

~~~
Hrundi
At least until Google finds out:

From <http://www.google.com/permissions/#tab2>

_We cannot approve the use of Internet domain names that use the word “Google”
or some variation of “Google”. For example, we would not approve a site called
googleXYZ.com or gogggles.com._

~~~
slowpoke
That's pretty stupid. Is Google _seriously_ claiming rights on any possible
variation of the word "google", including misspellings that form other words,
like goggles?

~~~
Hrundi
A couple of friends once registered a domain called Googirl, back in 2003/4.
It was meant to provide a search engine for... well... girl pictures.

They had it sleeping for a year until they went full throttle and released the
site. It became very profitable, and then one day, Google dropped their hammer
on them.

I can only imagine this being just one of many stories about this.

Microsoft did the same with MikeRoweSoft.com (fascinating story if you care to
take a look)

~~~
Hrundi
What do you know... the domain is alive and kicking (although it wasn't the
plain dot com I was talking about, it had a country code at the end. Both are
alive)

Maybe Google relaxed their stance? Still, I wouldn't bother having the word
Google in a domain, just in case.

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redthrowaway
Perhaps tangential to the story at hand, but I've actually begun to notice
Google's tracking and I have to say, I like it. My default browser is Chrome,
and I'm always signed in to Google. I'm not sure to what extent Google takes
text on pages recently viewed into account when searching, but I've noticed
that obscure terms on a page I'm reading tend to show up very highly in the
omnibox suggestions as I look them up. I would be surprised if this wasn't
intentional, and I'm also at a loss to explain how it's anything but good.

Google has, lately, gotten very good at intuiting what I want to look for.
It's the first time since Panda that I've noticed a marked improvement in
relevance and quality in Search, and it makes both Chrome and Search more
attractive.

~~~
nitrogen
_I'm also at a loss to explain how it's anything but good._

The concern is always what happens if this information gets hacked, stolen,
sold, subpoenaed, or NSL'd.

~~~
redthrowaway
One by one:

Hacked/stolen: anything I wouldn't want in the hands of criminals goes through
ssl. If they've broken that, Google tracking me is the least of my worries.

Sold: I'm comfortable with advertisers being able to target me. If they've
narrowed down their target market by videos viewed on motherless, I'd be
damned curious to see the ads.

Subpoenaed/NSL'd: were I to engage in any activities that would give me
trouble in the event of LE attention, I'd be doing it through TOR from a
coffeeshop, on a throwaway netbook running Truecrypt with the juicy stuff in a
hidden volume. That's not to suggest that only criminals need fear the
security/justice apparatus, but if I were doing anything that could draw
unwanted attention I'd take precautions.

Back when I was raiding with anon, before it had anything to do with political
motivations, I was paranoid about how easily I could be doxed and took extreme
measures to ensure I was unfindable. Now, I'm pretty open about most of my
online activities. If knowing my interests lets Google provide better
services, then they have my blessing. Should I decide to engage in activities
that would run me afoul of powerful organizations, I'll take precautions.

You won't find many stronger proponents than I of the need for anonymous
communication, but I don't extend that to _all_ communication. I'm cool with
getting fed ads in order to support the services I like, and if data
collection means fewer ads or better services, them I'm on board.

~~~
nitrogen
Your arguments are reasonable, and I'm all for more relevant search results,
but I would like to add a few points:

 _Hacked/stolen: anything I wouldn't want in the hands of criminals goes
through ssl. If they've broken that, Google tracking me is the least of my
worries._

It's most likely that the information would be hacked or stolen at the point
it's aggregated and stored by Google or its designated service provider, not
out of the actual data stream. Intrusions have happened at Google in the past,
either through Chinese hackers or rogue employees.

 _Sold: I'm comfortable with advertisers being able to target me. If they've
narrowed down their target market by videos viewed on motherless, I'd be
damned curious to see the ads._

Advertisers are far from the only ones who might buy your data. Health
insurance companies, credit reporting agencies, employers, and private
investigators are a few I can think of on the spot. Your search and browsing
history would be very valuable to all of them. Did you search for symptoms of
a disease before applying for health insurance? Rejected! Do you tend to play
online games that turn real money into in-game items? Increased credit risk!
Did you do an image search for seedy Japanese artwork ten years ago? You can
bet that'll come up in the custody hearing.

 _Subpoenaed/NSL'd: were I to engage in any activities that would give me
trouble in the event of LE attention, I'd be doing it through TOR from a
coffeeshop, on a throwaway netbook running Truecrypt with the juicy stuff in a
hidden volume. That's not to suggest that only criminals need fear the
security/justice apparatus, but if I were doing anything that could draw
unwanted attention I'd take precautions._

There's still the remote possibility of things that are currently legal being
made illegal later on, and past search and ad behavior being used to target
investigations of said once-legal activity. Target already knows you're
pregnant before your family does. Who knows what kind of possibly precrime-
predictive patterns will be found by present and future datamining algorithms
that span multiple humanity-wide datasets?

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eli
It was a just a proxy to Google, no?

~~~
schiffern
It also stripped out Google's click-tracking, and didn't put your search terms
in the Referrer header.

They claimed to not keep persistent server logs, but there's no way to verify
that.

~~~
jahmed
How legal would it be for a US based company to just not keep logs?

~~~
eurleif
Should be completely legal:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retenti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#United_States)

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ronnoch
The two best alternatives I've found:

<https://ixquick.com/eng/>

<https://startpage.com/eng/>

~~~
lunarscape
Aren't they the same? It says "Startpage by ixquick" for example on the
Startpage About page.

~~~
ronnoch
I believe Ixquick blends results from several search engines, like an
aggregator. Startpage is by the same people but only includes Google results.
It also has some Google-specific features like date search. The difference is
pretty small though.

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yabai
Sad news. RIP scroogle...

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gee_totes
Does anyone know if there is a mirror of namebase.org up somewhere?

