Erase Your Search Tracks (BusinessWeek)

Most people probably don’t realize that their online searches are tracked by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. With a new feature called AskEraser, Ask.com is hoping to give people control over the privacy of their online searches.

It’s a real issue for some people, especially given the uproar that ensued last year when AOL let slip search data from 650,000 users, some of which got tied to specific individuals.

AskEraser, launching on Tuesday, will let people delete records of their future search queries from Ask.com’s servers. That includes the user’s IP address and the text of the search queries. However, search query info will continue to be sent to Google, which runs ads on Ask. (There’s much more detail at Search Engine Land.)