Ask.com announced Friday that it will allow search users to control how and whether their searches are recorded, marking the first time a major search company has modified their data retention policy to make it user controllable.

This will prove to be a good move for Ask. In this day and age of snoop-and- let-snoop, privacy advocates will welcome a search engines who doesn't spy on their behavior. As long as governments allow such privacy I think you'll see Ask.com's user base grow. You may even see Google's shrink a little. If Ask can prove that it returns more accurate results than Google then you'll likely see the fourth largest search engine take a little search share away from Google. But it will be a long time before Google is toppled of its hill. Nevertheless, this is a good start. Isn't it?

Source: http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com