In April 2017, President Trump signed congressional legislation that repeals the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy protections for Internet users. Since privacy is on everyone’s mind, people are wondering how exactly search engines collect your data, and beyond this, what they can do about it.

The data collection methods for major search engines can be understood in three key ways: the ease of switching from one search engine to another, the ability for consumers to opt out of data collection, and the ability to avoid having your data collected.

Switching Costs for Search Engines

For major search engines, there are virtually zero switching costs for consumers. It’s as simple as navigating to another search engine, which does not track its users, and type the same query into the search bar. Since private search engines don’t track your data, the results may be less targeted, since use of your data is how major search engines populate your results, but it takes nothing more than switching the search engine you use to cease handing your data over to a major search provider. But, if you want a search engine provider to stop collecting your data and creating a digital profile of you, you’ll need to switch your other services as well (email, cloud storage, etc.), since major search engines are heavily integrated with these.

Opting Out of Data Collection

Search engine providers have never given users the ability to opt out, and if you use a major search engine provider that constructs a digital profile of you and does not respect your privacy, you absolutely will be tracked. Unlike other internet services that give you the ability to opt out, a search engine does not, since their business model relies on the collection and analysis of your data. This is why it’s critically important to use a decentralized search engine that respects your privacy and does not track your data, since a centralized search engine will violate your privacy.

Data Collection Avoidance

While you can avoid having your data collected by ISPs when you use a virtual private network (VPN), with search engine providers, there is no way to opt out if they choose to collect data on you, and since their business model is contingent upon collecting and analyzing your data, they will collect data on everything you do. Even with the use of a VPN, your search engine provider will still see the traffic and will track you and build digital profiles of you, unless you use a private search engine like Bitclave.

Next Steps?

Bottom line: you are unable to opt out of a search engine collecting your data if you use a search engine that collects your data. It’s a certainty that they will collect and store your data, so try opting for a private search engine instead. One great choice is BitClave. BitClave is built upon the Ethereum blockchain and leverages decentralized technology as a means of granting users heightening agency over the data they choose to share with advertisers.