Ask.com might not be the leading search engine, but it's trying to prove it's the most consumer-friendly with its latest privacy move. The question is whether consumers really care as much as privacy advocates claim they do.

On Tuesday, Ask.com launched a new product designed to give consumers more control over the privacy of their online searches. The technology, called AskEraser, allows searchers to erase queries completely from Ask.com servers, including IP address, user ID, session ID, and the complete text of their queries.

There is little argument about the significance of the move. Ask.com is a major player in search engines, and giving users control over the data generated by their activities online could lead the way for industry change, privacy advocates say.

Still, others are waiting and watching to see whether Ask.com's users truly care enough about privacy to use the eraser.

The Key to Control

"There's going to be a lot of talk about how many people have turned the AskEraser on. In some ways that's not the real question," said Ari Schwartz, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

"It's really about building trust and the possibilities of personalization in the future," he said. "If people trust Ask services because they have the ability to turn them off, that's a significant move forward."

Ask.com users will find the AskEraser link featured in the upper right corner of the search engine's home page and search results pages. Once enabled, AskEraser remains "on" for searches conducted across Ask.com's major search verticals: Web, images, AskCity, news, blogs, video, and maps. The feature can be turned on or off by the user at any time.

"The key is that AskEraser is on every page that you go to on Ask.com. Ask has given it priority. That's what makes it work," Schwartz said. "We'd like to see other search companies give users control. It's not clear to me why they haven't put the control options out there to see if people use them."

Pushing the Envelope

The way Schwartz sees it, search companies don't need to dictate how long consumer query information is stored. Earlier this year, Google led the charge with a new data-retention policy to disassociate search history from IP addresses and user IDs after 18 months. Ask.com and MSN followed suit, and Yahoo ran ahead with a 13-month retention policy. Ask is now pushing the envelope with its user controls.

Will Google, Yahoo, and the rest be forced to offer similar options to searchers? Schwartz said he isn't sure they'll be forced to do so, but search companies will have to examine the results of Ask.com's labors to determine whether user privacy controls are a competitive feature.

"We are hoping we will see more use of user controls in the future. We'd like to see it play out to where there is more competition there," Schwartz said. "Users can express their desire for privacy control by using the AskEraser and by letting the other engines they use know that it's important to them."