Besides DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search, one more search engine is now promising to protect Internet users from all the data collection that Google is accused of. You.com creators are promising a search engine with “trust, kindness, and facts”.
A new search engine is entering public beta testing this week. You.com, created by a former Salesforce chief scientist Richard Socher, assures users “more click trust and less clickbait”.
A new search engine challenging Google with an AI-powered algorithm that uses Natural Language Processing:
A new search engine is beginning public trials this week. Conceptualized by former Salesforce chief scientist Richard Socher, You.com claims to address the pain points of Google.com.
Socher claims his new search engine is built on trust, kindness, and facts. “We want to work on having more click trust and less clickbait on the internet,” he says.
Salesforce CEO Benioff invests in search engine startup https://t.co/rR4KN364Um https://t.co/gx4g5yu5sm pic.twitter.com/3ijbRM4yC7
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2021
You.com is a completely ad-free platform. The company claims that it “never sells your data to advertisers or follows you around the internet” and that it will never feature targeted ads. The search engine uses integrated apps from sites like BBC News, Craigslist, and others to make it easier to choose what kind of content users want to see.
https://t.co/CGMmMcxoAr Launches in Beta As a Privacy-Focused Search Alternative to Google https://t.co/L4zvZ4BOiy pic.twitter.com/CgKyp9HigU
— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) November 9, 2021
There’s also a private mode that claims to “never store your queries, preferences or locations.” Even in the standard model, You.com uses its own IP address (not the users’) to send anonymized data in order to populate results from apps and sites such as local weather info and things like nearby restaurants or attractions.
Interestingly, You.com claims it is eco-friendly as well. It has reportedly partnered with Sustain.Life to offset the search engine’s carbon emissions.
How does You.com offer an ad-free search engine and what are its revenue sources?
Any standard search engine’s performance typically relies on the data it catalogs. Essentially, Google.com has amassed and keeps accumulating information from millions of websites that agree to work with the company.
Competing search platforms such as DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search, are nowhere in the league of Google Search. However, these companies are constantly experimenting with newer methods to bring relevant search results and information to their users, while protecting users’ privacy.
People keep talking about how search results need to move beyond lists of links—which we’ve had since well before there was a Google—but they’ve proven surprisingly durable and useful. (By @OneJaredNewman.) https://t.co/lP0gq4dx1c
— Harry McCracken (@harrymccracken) November 9, 2021
You.com claims its search engine “uses an AI-powered algorithm that uses Natural Language Processing to better understand potential queries”. The company appears focused on summarizing results. According to You.com, the “aim is to make your life easier by summarizing the web for you, eliminating the need to open multiple tabs.”
Today, we launched https://t.co/2tfrBwz8cM, a private search engine that summarizes the web for you 🚀. I'll be answering questions throughout the day on @ProductHunt. Thank you for your support and feedback 🙏https://t.co/PWyoANIL5h
— Richard Socher (@RichardSocher) November 9, 2021
As it is completely devoid of ads and doesn’t harvest user data, it is not clear how You.com is making any money to sustain its operations.
The search platform could be relying on affiliate links, but that wouldn’t offer much. Socher indicated that the platform “will enable companies to contribute their most useful actual content to the first page [of search results]”. Simply put, it is quite likely that the company could tie up with websites and content platforms.