• WebProNews, Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:15 PM

Just days after Ask debuted its AskEraser search data anonymizing service, privacy advocates and industry insiders have said that it falls a bit short when it comes to eradicating user info.

Jason Lee Miller highlights a statement in the AskEraser FAQs that proves that while Ask attempts to get rid of the search data, it cannot force third-party providers of info like stock quotes, weather conditions, and paid search results (i.e. Google) to remove the user info from their servers.

Miller does more digging and finds out that Ask still keeps the search info (user or session IDs, IP addresses, actual search terms and/or links clicked on) to abide by local, state, and federal information-gathering laws. And like all the other engines, will hand this info over if an investigation requires it (and the interested parties jump through the right legal hoops).

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