Is Yahoo’s New OneSearch Privacy Safe?
Yahoo and Verizon’s new search engine , OneSearch , is a completely different product from the Yahoo search of yesteryear. Not only does OneSearch opt out of the Yahoo branding (for obvious reasons), but it also states that it does not use cookies, does not store search history, and does not share user information.
Oh, but by the way, it’s still an ad-supported platform – after all, it’s Verizon and it has to make money somehow.
According to The Verge , all ads are keyword-based, not cookie-based, meaning they are generated on the fly when you search for something. None of your searches are saved or shared with third parties, and there is an enhanced privacy mode that encrypts your searches and URL to keep third parties out.
It sounds good on paper, but in a different way: OneSearch is literally just Bing results surrounded by (hopefully) keyword-generated ads that aren’t tracking you, despite being owned by a company that makes money by tracking you.
Funny description aside, I don’t necessarily think OneSearch is bad or that you should stay away – at least for now.
Bing is a decent search engine in its own right, and I always advocate greater user privacy, especially since Google makes it harder for users to experience an ad-free experience. But it’s hard to justify Yahoo and Verizon’s doubts when their entire business model is built around collecting user data (and notoriously mishandling and leaking that data). By all means, give OneSearch a try and I sincerely hope the privacy statements turn out to be true, but our hopes for a private search engine don’t depend on OneSearch either. There are already many other suitable alternative search engines and internet browsers.
By now, you probably know that I think Firefox is pretty darn good; its default tracker blocking tools are great for keeping your browsing and searches private, even if you use google search. I can also say the same about Brave, which is completely abandoning all page ads and site trackers . These two have become my main browsers lately. Then there is DuckDuckGo, which has full-featured desktop and mobile browsers in addition to its popular privacy-focused search engine .
These are just a few of the many browsers, search engines, and extensions that are at least better than Chrome or Google Search when it comes to user privacy. Hopefully OneSearch does too.