• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 12, 2020

Microsoft continues to expand Bing’s content and advertising network through privacy search engines. On Wednesday Perion Network announced that CodeFuel, its search technology division that supports publishers, has launched the Privado Private Search Engine, offering new ways for searchers to protect their online privacy.

Privado, powered by Microsoft Bing, follows another newly launched privacy search engine, Verizon Digital’s OneSearch, which Bing also powers.

Late last year, the privacy search engine Startpage debuted a tab for News results -- adding to features like web searches, images, videos, and anonymous views. Microsoft provides the News feed through Bing.

“Ads are based on the typed-in user search query,” wrote Sharona Meushar, head of marketing at CodeFuel, in an email to Search Marketing Daily. “With Privado, Bing does not use information about the user to target ads.”

Keeping browsing history private is top of mind for some internet users. About 42% of the 7,500 surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. cited browsing habits such as internet search history as a major concern, according to an RSA Privacy & Security Report.

To ensure that a search query is not associated with a specific user, Privado generates an anonymous ID, and users are presented with contextual information to search queries. Ad targeting relies on that contextual query.

When asked why CodeFuel chose Bing to power searches, Meushar explained that the two companies worked together to develop the engine and “not every search engine can handle the complex requirements of offering a true private search experience.”

Bing is a long-time partner of CodeFuel and offers advanced technology search results, she wrote.

Tal Jacobson, GM at Israeli-based CodeFuel, leads the Privado search engine under the CodeFuel division. He has been in the high-tech industry for more than 20 years, spend time as CRO and chief business development officer at SimilarWeb, and founded Monotizer, which provided a technology for generating traffic to online retailers, and served as VP of business at McCann Erickson.