Dump Google?

[Jordan]

On 09/10/2010 08:14 PM, Martin Albisetti wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:58 PM, Jordan<jordanhewi at gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> Dear Ubuntu Developers,
>>
>> I'm not sure if I'm the first person to suggest this, but lately
>> Google's reputation has diminished, especially with talk of them being
>> Big Brother (yes, I know what server my email's on).  Why not drop
>> Google and go for a more private search engine?
>>
>> I know of a few underdogs such as Startpage and Yauba (I know of one
>> more whose name I forgot...they have plans for an email system).
>> Probably they would be happy to form an alliance with Ubuntu.
>>
>> I'm thinking large-picture here.  Ubuntu's main attraction is it's
>> security and privacy (not requiring users to register, for instance).
>> With the technology news on Google and large search engines, I think we
>> should jump on the band wagon to avoid Google. What do you say?
>>      
> I don't think Ubuntu's main attraction is security and privacy.
> It's important to many of us on this list, but hardly the reason we've
> got millions of users.
>
>
>    
Yikes, I didn't know there would be such a volatile reaction...it was 
just a suggestion.  True, it does seem like Google does the best they 
can and they haven't broken any laws (as far as we know).  However, 
Google does store user's information, such as I.P. addresses and the 
searches (yes, the I.P. address goes away after 8 months) and they 
transmit a crazy amount information back to the server (autocomplete for 
instance).

Now, as far as I know, the Ubuntu platform does not record or store your 
I.P. address except for services like Ubuntu One.  A search engine like 
Google, to me, doesn't fall in line with a privatized search engine like 
Google.

Or one thing we could do is still provide Google, but add a more private 
search engine to give the user's that option (I mentioned Startpage 
above).  I'm sure they would love to help improve open source.

Again, only a suggestion...I'm trying to make Ubuntu better as much as 
the next guy.  Sorry if I made anyone angry.