• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 6, 2008

Around half of all Web users, or 49%, now use search engines on a typical day, according to new research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Three years ago, only 40% of Web users said they used search on a typical day, and just one in three said the same in 2002.

The only activity more popular is e-mail use, with 60% of Web users saying they spend time e-mailing on a typical day. Checking the news lagged beyond search (39% of users on a typical day), followed by checking the weather (30%); only 13% of users said they visited a social networking site on a typical day.

The report doesn't distinguish between activity at big branded search sites like Google.com and searches at other publishers' sites. In fact, the report proposes that one of the reasons for the surge in search is that a growing number of Web publishers have installed query boxes on their own sites. "Users can now expect to find a high-performing, site-specific search engine on just about every content-rich website that is worth its salt," the report states. Of course, many of those sites' search capabilities are now powered by Google, Yahoo or MSN.

This report confirms what industry observers have long said: Search is increasingly becoming a gateway to the Web. People obviously find search engines a useful and efficient way to gather information -- or else they wouldn't continue to use them. Yet, the rise of search engines also poses some threats, both to the Web users who rely on search to find information, and the businesses that rely on search engines to make sure they can be found.

Some companies may as well not be in business if they don't appear in the Google search results. Already, there's been a lawsuit by a company, KinderStart that says it was unfairly dropped from Google's search results. Google won that case, as it probably should have -- it's hard to see how a court could order Google to change its organic search results. Yet KinderStart also had a point; after all, the company saw business plummet due to what it perceived as an arbitrary decision on Google's part.

Additionally, even though people are searching more than ever before, significant questions remain about what's being done with the clickstream trail they leave behind. The three major search engines store every query by IP address for many months. If those query logs became public, they could go a long way towards compromising people's privacy. In fact, it's already happened. Two years ago, AOL released query logs for 650,000 users. Though the IP addresses were altered, it didn't take much to figure out some people's identities based on their queries alone.

While Web companies insist that nothing similar is likely to occur again, their confidence on this point is puzzling. As long as they keep the information, it can be subpoenaed, or courts can order it disclosed, or, as happened with AOL, staffers can mistakenly release it.